


Grimoire of Alice

by GOID77



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Touhou Project
Genre: 2nd-Year Transfer Student, Elemental Magic, F/F, Gensokyo Banishing, Powerful Protagonist, Ritual Magic, Temporary Amnesia, non-canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2019-06-29 18:17:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 41,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15734826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GOID77/pseuds/GOID77
Summary: When solving an incident related to a novelist (H.P.Lovecraft), Alice was dead. Her soul was kept by Patchouli until she completed the ritual of resurrection. Dumbledore reached to the witches and help them complete the final step, asking for help to destroy Voldemort in return. The witches guaranteed to help him and protect students' safety at Hogwarts. Alice sealed her memories for a variety of reasons. This is the story of the witches in and after Hogwarts.





	1. Grimoire of Alice

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, this is my first fanfic.  
> Really cannot resist Alice/Patchy, perhaps this is the truth. Cannot resist Touhou either.  
> P.S. Trying to use Touhou music names as each chapter's title. Goodluck for me.  
> Disclaimer:  
> All Touhou characters belong to ZUN.  
> All Harry Potter characters belong to J.K. Rowling  
> Characters exist/existed in the real world belong to themselves?

Hermione was going through books in the restricted section when everyone else was waiting for the Hogwarts express for the end of the first semester. Normally it was impossible for a first-year witch to get the permission from her professors, not to mention her head of the house was the famous overprotective Minerva McGonagall. No professors weren't able to get her into the restricted section, but a certain twinkling headmaster can smuggle her in without notifying anybody. After confronting Albus Dumbledore with her question about philosopher stone, she was able to search in the restricted section for an hour before the train departs and take the book back home during the break.

She scanned through one bookshelf to another, disappointed that none of the books were at least related to the philosopher's stone.

On her way here, there was a shelf labeled as “magical stone”, but it was, unfortunately, empty. With the clock ticking she decided that it was the end of her journey.

Returning, she came across the magical stone shelf again. “I must have missed that book last time.” She muttered under her breath with her gaze locked on the only red-white book lying on the not-so-empty bookshelf.

“At least I have something to read during Christmas.”

< 

“Hermione! you nearly miss the train! you surely get something worthy!” once Hermione entered the cabin on Hogwarts expert, her friends were already in the cabin.

A redhead figure rose and yelled, barely hiding excitement and impatient in his tone. Harry Potter helped Hermione lifting her luggage, focusing gazes on her as well.

“Be quiet, Ron.” Hermione slipped the door shut and cast a quick silencing charm on it. “You are attracting whole train's interest!”

“what makes you so long anyway?”

Seeing the boy was not going to lower his voice until she took out the book, she sighted and sited across the boys with her bag placed on the table. “This.” Hermione pulled out the book and lay it out for Ron and Harry to see. The line of words was written neat handwriting, blood-red letters attracted everyone's attention once it entered their sight.

_The Grimoire of Alice_

“Merlin's beard!” Ron Weasley never ceased yelling, “You didn’t get a book, you got a freaking grimoire!”

“Wait, what? what's the difference?”

Hermione asked in confusion while flipping the book open to a random page and scanning cross the content, but later shocked by the words written inside. They were not written in English, Latin, or Greek; or the runes she caught a glimpse in high year textbook. Staring at those letters her mind started to drift and her sight dazzled.

When she started to faint, Ron snatched the grimoire from her, knocking Hermione out of dizziness.

“It's too dangerous for us, young wizards, to read a grimoire. It links to the writer's mind, spirit, and magic. It will backfire if the reader cannot endure the willpower within the lines.” he tugged the grimoire into Hermione’s bag carefully and said “I really don't suggest you bringing this back your home and into the muggle world. If a muggle read it, they may be dead in an instant.  You should return it to the headmaster.”

Hermione sighted “I guess that remain in the restricted section for a reason, but that is the only promising book I can find on the magical stone bookshelf. Do you think professor Dumbledore wants me to get that book? Headmaster gave me a portkey he said I can use it if I finish reading and wish to return, he surely wanted me to finish something.”

“If the book...grimoire, is that dangerous, Hermione, I don't believe headmaster will even let you near the book. You know, it’s the headmaster's job to protect students, right? He must be unaware of the grimoire. Someone must purposely place it there, most likely Snape.”

“Professor Snape, Harry. And you are being unreasonable! why would he expect me, a first-year student, enter the restricted section?”

“Well, perhaps he overheard your conversation with headmaster...”

The sudden erupt of noise coming from the corridor ceased the discussion. Everyone in the cabin looked at each other in confusion, the silencing spell blocking the sound from penetrating had somehow ceased working.

Ron turned his head toward the window and shouted, “the train stopped!”, attracting other's attention. With everyone turning their head toward the window, the bag and grimoire fell to the ground without catching anyone's notice.

“What has happened?” Hermione asked, “Do Hogwarts expert normally stop in middle?”

“Definitely not normal.” Ron stated “My brothers never tell me Hogwarts expert has stopped in middle in the past. Even Fred and George's explosions won't stop the train.”

“Why are we so special?” Harry murmured under his breath, “We better stay in the cabin then.”

“Sunlight disappears” Ron, who kept staring at the window, stated “It's a bright day, at noon, but we don't have any sunlight sprayed into the cabin. Something bad must be happening.”

“And now I started to feel cold, is it some sort of dark magic? Slytherins, I know it was them, they live in dungeons and love snakes after all.” Harry spat.

I can't cast magic now!” Hermione gasped, flicking her wand like mad trying to perform another silencing spell, but nothing happens. “Wingardium Leviosa! Lumos!” She tried other spells, but effortless as well.

The wizards draw their wands and did their own trying, yet none of them can create even the slightest spark from their wands.

Harry snapped “Great! now they disable our magic as well, I wonder when they will come in and slaughter us all!”

“Don't be ridiculous harry” Ron turn his attention to the table, “If Slytherins know this kind of dark magic, he-who-must-not-be-named would have won the war a decade ago. Something else causes this, where's the grimoire?”

Hermione’s sight swept across the cabin, unexpectedly finding the grimoire laying near the door, place where no ordinary book can reach by itself, flipped to a random page. She walked to the grimoire, noticing the temperature dropped prominently near it. When she attempted to reach it, a black sphere suddenly appeared and expanded, embracing Hermione within a second.

The wizards remained seated and gapped in shock. Harry tried to figure out a spell he could use, and he soon realized they can do nothing without magic in hand, even escaping was a mission impossible.

The sphere stopped expanding once it covered Hermione. Harry didn't place his faith in others, wizards born in magical society tended to freak out once they lost their power. What can they do without magic? Harry had spent enough time in the non-magical world, knowing flipping wands is not the only solution. With a spark in mind, he snatched his broom under the table, and stabbed it into the sphere, hoping it can disrupt the whatever magic the grimoire was performing, or Hermione can grab it.

Instead of stabbing the book, he stabbed onto some soft tissue. So, the sphere was not destructive, he thought. Subconsciously he retrieved the broom, afraid that he may hurt Hermione, and the sphere shrunk in the process.

The first to be revealed was Hermione’s body. She was dazzle and slumped to the floor when Ron dragged her back to safety.

“Do you know what that was?” Ron asked.

“I have no idea.” Hermione was still recovering from the shock, “I need to return this book to the headmaster at once, see you around.” Grabbing the grimoire from the ground, without another word, she portkeyed away with the lemon drop Dumbledore given her.


	2. The Doll Maker of Bucuresti

Albus Dumbledore was practicing faking a curious expression when the witch he had waited for an hour appeared in his office. “I thought you will return later than this, Miss Granger. Have you finished with the book?” he asked.

Hermione placed the grimoire carefully on the desk and tell Dumbledore what had happened on the train.

After hearing the details of the incident, especially the part After his monitoring spell fell apart, he said, “Some magic was activated once you flipped the grimoire open. The anomalies you see were all related to loss of energy. Magic, heat, and light, they were likely absorbed by the grimoire to activate the magic. Fortunately, it didn’t directly extract energy from human bodies. It's a wise decision to bring the grimoire to me, Miss Granger. now, I shall return you to the train.”

When Dumbledore entered his office, he founded a woman figure seated neatly on the chair. She had a blonde shoulder-length hair and blue eyes, dressed in a white dress with a blue apron, and a blue hair clip with blue ribbons. The Grimoire of Alice was placed on the headmaster's desk, opened to a random page. The girl boringly stared at the portraits on the wall across.

He moved to his chair, asking his elf for afternoon tea in the process. “I guess the examination was completed perfectly?” he asked, “Since you decided to show up.”

“Your chosen one has the potential of being a hero.” she replied. “but it is not perfect, more time is needed for him to develop to match his opponent. So, I may have to spend the next six years at Hogwarts.”

“Your help is much appreciated, but is it necessary for you to remain in Hogwarts?”

“I spent over 70 years inside the library without a body after my death. Patchy is bored maintaining soul preservation field for these years. After my resurrection, we can use some vacation.”

Dumbledore gapped, but nothing came out. She continued, “Which means you have to find a place in staff for her, librarian perhaps.”

“I think Hogwarts can have two librarians,” Dumbledore stated. “What about you, Miss Margatroid, what place do you want in Hogwarts?”

“I will be attending as a transfer student starting next year. But you better tell me which the planned incidents are, or I may have solved it. You surely won’t let him live a peaceful school life, I presume?”

“That is much appreciated, Miss Margatroid. Do you have any more request?”

Elegantly Alice finished her cup of tea and retrieved the grimoire from the desk. “One final request, I would like to attend as a Knowledge next year. I don't need to graduate from the same school twice.”

Dumbledore nodded. “Very well, Miss... Knowledge, have a good night.”

The witch grinned, golden eyes broadcasting delight. “Have a good night, headmasters.”

< 

“It’s weird seeing her return to her younger self.” A portrait sighed, “reminded me of the troubles she caused.”

Dumbledore sighed as well, “I only hope she won’t kill any students this time.” He remembered the record he found. The heir of the house of Black was stabbed to death in a magical duel. A death or two in a duel back in the middle age wasn’t abnormal, especially when some nobles participate in it. However, it was the heir of the most Nobel and ancient house of Black being cut into pieces. The result was not recorded, but he can’t help connecting this with the miserably ruined Black mansion.

He grabbed his quill and started to write notes for the faculties. They should be warned, well, the trusted ones should be warned. Even though she was lenient on most of the times, she was volatile on certain things. The young Black heir had paid his life for crossing the borders, he didn’t want his staffs to end up in the same place.

< 

Alice slowly glided into the library instead of heading toward her chamber. She made her way into the restricted section, walking to a bookshelf in the corner. The seventh book on the left on the seventh layer had a black and white cover.

“Medical usage of unforgivables and other dark arts, by Alice Margatroid” she muttered. When finished, she walked into the shadow projected by the shelf and dim candles. With the slightest twist of light, she disappeared.

< 

In the forest of Romania, a mansion abandoned by its owner sited in the place of nowhere. The mansion of the Scarlet devil now lacked the presence of the scarlet. Hundreds, if not thousands of low-rank vampires remained frozen in the moonlight channeled from all over the globe by magical fields, obeying their order: to swear fealty to a new lord, who is able to walk across the front garden.

Tom Riddle, self-claimed as Voldemort the dark lord, ordered his slave and host to open the gate when the sun was the highest and when the defense of the mansion was weakest.

Its first step triggered a trap. Red lances conjured from mid-air stabbed into the body, extracting it into a pile of ash.

Voldemort’s soul floated in the air, not being surprised by the scene. _The borrowed body was hard to control after all, especially difficult when it comes to a muggle body._ It thinks. Luckily, I have a village at my disposal.

Twisting its sight, a line of villagers emerging from the edge of the forest, men women and children walking like controlled dolls. another person entered the garden, barely dodging the lance, but perished in the attacks that followed.

_I have plenty of time and supply to waste. When I get my new body, I would have finished exploring this garden. By then entering will not be an issue, and I will have a truly undead and faithful death eater army to storm the world. scarlet devil, Thank you for your generous gift._


	3. Voile, the Magic Library

The grand magical library was a fortress floating in Atlantic. A reactor consuming seawater powered every spells, fields, and equipment on board. The only way to enter and exit the library is going through its “anchors” scattered in the world. All of them were books stored in libraries or museums, making them branched extension to the grand magical library, providing its owner access to every piece of knowledge in the world.  
The library was designed to be a place for researching and analyzing the truth, in both magical, practical, and non-magical, theoretical, ways. In 1691, the statute of secrecy almost separated the world apart. Non-magical people, or muggles as they said, had talent in theoretical research, while the magicians were convenient in experimenting with the ability to do magic. The library was the only organization connecting the two fractions, taking the latest theories and experimenting them with magic, figuring out ways to construct experiment without magic, reporting the results back into the non-magical world and hoping for more advanced theories to appear. To an extent, their intervention help shaped the foundation of science.  
Unfortunately, the magical world was restricted by the code, many were surprised that nothing was heard from the two talented witches at all. Thanks to the arrogant nature of wizard society. Although a simple glimpse of the muggle academic system would grand them with two certain names, how could one expect superior and incapable wizards pay any attention to academic? They cared less about their own research, after all, otherwise, they wouldn’t put the pursuit of the truth behind a stupid code.  
<  
Once Alice appeared at the entrance of the library, she was caught from behind by a warm body. “Is that a proposal?” The woman asked. She pressed firmly against Alice’s back, brushing Alice’s ear with her lips and breathing out softly.  
Alice’s heart skipped a beat, cheeks blushing, but the cool air maintained by wards in the library quickly claimed her down. She should have been used to Patchouli’s flirting by now.  
Thinking about that she attacked “I didn’t expect you to be a pedophilia!”  
Patchouli’s body stiffened. “Nice try, Alice. But that’s not enough to get me. You know, there’s some instant grow magic recorded in N4 section…”  
“But that’s the agriculture and gardening section!” Alice retorted. “I am not and will not be a plant, or experimental white rat of yours!”  
Faking an obvious disappointment on her face, Patchouli muttered, “Oh I’m so sad, even Alice doesn’t believe my ability. What’s the purpose of maintaining this library after all? I’ve waited for 70 years, it shouldn’t matter if I wait a few more years.”  
“Enough for that, Patchy.” Turning and looking into Patchouli’s tired purple eyes, Alice complained. “You’re just disappointed that you lost a full-size pillow! Here, I have an idea.” She opened her grimoire and pulled out a doll identical to her fully grown body. “This can fulfill your wish.”  
Patchouli stared at the girl before her in disbelief. “I am not going to rut on a corpse!”  
“Oh, very well. I better retrieve it then.”  
“Wait!” Patchouli grabbed the disappearing doll from Alice’s hand, and drag it back to reality.  
“You said you’re not a necrophilia!”  
“You really believe that?” Patchouli teased, “I stared at a ghost for 70 years, you know.”  
Alice sighed. “It’s my fault to underestimate your extent of paraphilia.” She joked, “Look at you, what have you turned into without my companion? Luckily, I’m back now.”  
“Oh, welcome back,” Patchouli spoke plainly.  
Alice complained, “That’s it?”  
“What are you expecting with your zero-year-old body? I’m not interested in an infant.”  
“I thought it’s the soul that matters.”  
“That’s why I stared at you for 70 years.”  
“Stalking then.” Alice gave up.  
Looking at the blonde’s face, Patchouli smiled. “I believe you won’t consider it as sexual harassment, will you?”  
“Why not?”  
“As a master of soulology, you don’t even know the concept of sex doesn’t exist in souls? What a slothful witch.” Patchouli continued to tease the girl. She really missed her voice. Staring and talking to an un-responding soul for nearly a century was not an entertainment.  
“Speaking of sloth,” she continued, “since you are back, we should deal with that book now.”  
Alice’s smile was replaced by a serious expression, “You sure with this? In the last time…”  
Patchouli floated toward the center of the library. “That text seems to gain power from its believers across the globe, the sooner we deal with it the better.”  
“What happened after my death?” Alice suddenly asked.  
“That novelist had his psionic talent awaken in a rather old age, thanks to the rituals he accidentally constructed in his novels. That was not a primary problem, though, he didn’t do anything except publishing more works. What problematic was that his work created…a fashion, I would say. There were some people believing the content in novels were truths. Thanks to their unwavering faith, bursts of magic were detected across the globe, something cannot be solved without leaving you unattended.”  
“Those idealistic idiots,” she sighed, “always leaving their own messes for others to clean up.”  
“Speaking like you have never left messes for me to clean up.” Patchouli complained.  
<  
In a hidden and encrypted chamber stored the text of trouble; fields and wards were cuddling and overlapping across each other. Located in the center was a yellowish text, slightly glowing as it absorbed the faith even under the protection. Printed words appearing to be as dark and clear as new, never seemed to fade.  
“Patchy,” Alice said, “into the mantle.”  
With the lightest shiver, the library started to dig through the seabed. Within a minute it shrunk ten kilometers and penetrated the Crust, leaving a tunnel behind. Magma erupted through it, vaporizing the water above, and froze into solid rocks. Fire, water, air, earth, four elements danced around the library, reinforcing the existing energy circulation.  
Patchouli appeared outside of the library, magma danced on her shield powered by five Philosopher's stone. She frowned. The library shouldn’t be shivering. the Since the library’s undersea, the R’lyeh Text is stronger than usual. The library is shrinking under the sea, hosting by a descendant of gods, so it can be seen as R’lyeh in the ritual. She thought. More reinforcement is required.  
She was aware of a coal bed located near the tunnel. She blew the rocks beneath it, releasing tons of coals into the mantle. Without the presence of oxygen, combustion wasn’t available, providing an essential wood element for the magic. Magma is melted metals, so the metal element is taken care of.  
The “Wu Xing”, five metamorphoses of being, were gathered, forming rings of generating. Energy circulated around the library, completely blocking and separating the space inside and the world outside. Oriental magic did operate better in defense due to its consistency.  
Shadows converged near the building, strange thing that it happened where everything was illuminating. The shadows materialized, turning into humanoid creatures with fish’s heads. And then they were crushed and melted by the magma around. It was too deep for the deep ones, after all, it was mantel. Even the wildest believer on Earth wouldn’t imagine creatures living in the mantel, well, not in this era at least.  
Alice stood in front of the R’lyeh Text, waiting until the energy circulation and defenses outside were settled by Patchouli. Once the magic outside was settled, she removed the original defenses and flipped her grimoire open.


	4. Plastic mind

In her last attempt to eliminate the text, she was caught off guard by one of the collections in the library. The resonance between Necronomicon and the R’lyeh Text was something she didn’t expect. The new-born R’lyeh Text was not a problem, but Necronomicon was a grimoire with great power, power strong enough to interrupt and disturb her connection with the Grimoire of Alice under the suppression under library protection wards. Normally, the magic eruption caused by grimoires was not a bid deal, but the Grimoire of Alice was the only exception which was not suppressed by the library yet bearing the power exceeding any others. To save her lover and the library she had to terminate the magic, ending her body’s life as well.

This time, however, Alice believed they were more prepared. Necronomicon was locked safely in her grimoire, as well as any other collections which might correspond with the text. She was not going to eliminate it either. Channeling her magic, Alice started the ritual. A magic circle hovered above the text, tearing the text apart.

The mirage of abysmal appeared in her sight. Soul contamination, she had expected that. _I may have to seal a large piece of memory._ She thought despondently. _And I have to take my grimoire everywhere I go._ The Grimoire of Alice was able to clean up the impurities in her soul, but obviously, pollution was faster than purification. She had to separate a personality, and stuff all the polluted parts in it, avoiding them from spreading to the rest.

The circle’s fluctuation lightened, with a twist in the air, Patchouli appeared in the room. The first thing she noticed was the scarlet red eyes of a golden witch lying on the floor, holding her now shut grimoire in the left hand.

“Patchy,” the blond said, “most of the memories were contaminated. Instead of collecting those pieces, I think I can create a personality and pour artificial memories in it. After all, I am a puppeteer, not an actress.”

“Which means…” Patchouli should have expected that. Alice mentioned the soul contamination part. A fake personality was indeed one of their back up plans, but her heart uncontrollably started falling. Alice was leaving again.

“Don’t worry,” Alice said, raising her right hand for Patchouli to catch, “The memories were the only part affected. The emotional section was left intact. But we might have to break up for a while unless you are a pedophilia.” She teased.

“You underestimated me.” Patchouli grabbed her hand, providing the Alice her energy for counterfeiting memories. “But I rather prefer those red eyes, I like them.”

“Oh,” Alice smiled. “you have to wait until I learned magic from Makai then, Miss pedophilia.”

Patchouli stared at those beautiful red eyes, seeing the redness fading slowly. When the last trace of Maikai magic disappeared in Alice’s body, she saw a girl with pure blue gazes looking curiously at her. Her body told her it was already dawn. She sighed.

“We are going to pay your future headmaster a visit, prepare yourself.”

< 

Dumbledore apparated to the door of Severus Snape’s office. As a spy, the head of Slytherin was one of the two residents in Hogwarts who would mastered legilimency. After receiving news from Patchouli Knowledge he was more than pleased to warn his college. Even if the defenses were said to be strong enough to repel any spell, he had to ask Severus to look after the witch when he was unavailable. Better be safe than sorry, after all.

He pushed through the slightly opened door, seeing the head of Slytherin sitting straightly behind the desk. “On what occasion you are here?” He asked. “What can’t you say through the floo network?”

Dumbledore flipped his wand, the pensive filled with white memories float toward Snape and settled on the desk. “This.” He said, seating down in front of the desk.

Snape frowned, but dip his head into the pensive wordlessly. After he finished it, he frowned harder. “Albus,” He said hesitantly, “the Knowledges are always natural.”

Dumbledore twinkled, “This is just a good business. I provide them with new collections, they return with limited support.”

“They appeared to be more of a threat now.” Snape retorted.

“They didn’t need to warn me. And the remaining contamination does have some benefit as well.”

“They have agreed with this?”

“Only as the final resort.”

“Are you clear about when will be the final stage in their opinion?” Snape asked.

“The extinction of humanity.”

< 

It was after the exam of the history of magic, Alice strode toward the third floor. She was given chances to attend the first-year final exam in Hogwarts to see if her ability was acceptable as a transfer student in year two. In the past few days, after the exams, she had spent time wandering around the castle, chatting with each portrait and paintings. The armors displaying along the corridors caught her attention the most. She could feel magic circuits inside, structure similar human bodies.

_They are dolls._ She thought. She found a deserted corridor, making sure no one alive would catch her red-handed. She touched the armor with her index finger, it responded immediately. It seemed like she was talented in doing such a thing, channeling magic through it and looking for the core for activation. It seemed like a minute or two, the armor was activated. Raising its head, it stared into Alice’s eyes. Along with raspy noise, it stood up, raised the sword above his head, and froze. Alice had terminated energy supply, too effective that the armor collapsed heavily into pieces.

Alice looked around with guilt, suddenly realized that the sky had already darkened. She remembered what Patchy had told her, that something interesting was going to happen in today’s night around the third floor. She wandered down the corridor, finding a door left ajar.

Guessing it might be the interesting thing Patchy had mentioned, she pushed the door open and found a three-head dog lying and snoring near a playing harp. The dog slept deeply under the continuous music. After a brief check on the harp, knowing that the magic on had no sign of dissipating, she decided to step around and check the surroundings. A guard dog did not present for nothing, and a sealed chamber in the castle was not the best residence for a dog of this size. Bypassing the three-head dog she found a trapdoor behind. She opened the trapdoor, but the only thing she saw was darkness. She had expected a stairway downward. Sensing the magic lingered near the entrance, soon she was relieved. _A perfect place for storing treasure._ She thought.

The door was pushed open suddenly along with an unpleasant piping. Alice frowned, that had ruined her perfect mood for an adventure. She walked out from the shadow of the dog, turn out it was three kids, two boys and one girl, similar to her age. The three of them looked surprised by her presence.

“Who are you?” The redhead hissed, “get out from here! It’s dangerous!”

“Obviously,” She retorted, pointing at the harp, “proper music works perfectly in lulling the dog to sleep. What are you doing here?”

“To stop someone from stealing something.” The girl answered.

“Although I don’t know who someone and what something is, but I am sure that no one is able to take anything from there.” She gestured the trapdoor for them, “You can try. Your safety should be guaranteed if you take nothing from there.”

“Listen,” the boy with glasses stopped playing the flute, “Voldemort is going to steal the philosopher's stone. Since Snape has left the harp here, I guess he’s in there already. Since you are already here, Can you help us stop him? If you don’t, can you help us inform the professors?”

Alice sighed, “This castle is alive. The portraits monitored everything every time. I doubt the necessity of informing professors in person.” She drew out her wand, left the chamber and blew the portrait directly facing the door apart. Seeing the figure screamed in panic and ran off, she smiled. “One problem solved.”

Ignoring their horrifying faces, she returned to the chamber. The dog was snuffing now, obviously, the explosion was too loud for it to sleep. She levitated the harp, walked to the trapdoor, and gestured for them to open it.

Looking at the abyss, she started playing the harp. “It's not a lyre, but that will do.” She plucked serval strings, performing a monotonous song. Stairs formed from the void, leading a path downward.

She made a gesture, “Final warning. when you are returning, don’t look back.” Seeing the terrified face of the girl, she smiled. “I’m not going with you, have a nice trip in the underground, Orpheus. Don’t make the same mistake.”

“Thank you,” the girl said, “I’m Hermione Granger, what’s your name?” Seeing their companion’s action, the boys followed. “Harry Potter” “Ron Weasley”

“I’m Alice Knowledge,” she answered, “now go ahead.”


	5. Romantic Children

Hermione, Harry, and Ron walked on the path downward. Time passes unwittingly in the abyss of dark and silence. Harry felt like they had walked for an eternity when reaching the end of the path. The ground was covered by some sort of plant, he believed it must be used to catch people if anyone falls off.

“Harry wait,” Hermione said from the end of the team, “that’s devil’s snare.” She conjured a beam of fire through her wand and dispersed the plants lurking around them. Walking toward the storeroom, the caught the correct key, won the game of chess, walked past the lying troll, and solved the puzzle of potion.

After Harry went through the fire without harm, what he saw shocked him. He was professor Quirrell standing near a mirror, the Mirror of Erised. Quirrell shot a curse toward Harry, binding his legs and arms. He saw Quirrell disband his scarf, revealing a small ugly snake-like noseless face, and it spoke to him. “Pull him to the mirror.”

Harry felt a heavy object fall into his pocket and was quickly slipping. He looked at his pocket, shockingly found that the red stone, philosopher's stone had burned through his clothes.

“Take it!” Voldemort hissed. Quirrell rapidly knocked Harry into a coma and reached to the stone. The last thing Harry saw was the figure picking up the stone, and it burned through his hand.

Quirrell screamed out in pain, dropping his wand and grabbing his injured hand with the other. Voldemort hissed again, “Leave your hand, take the stone!”

Quirrell grabbed his wand with shaking hand. With the shaking hands, he performed a horrible levitation spell. The stone floated and followed him.

The face frowned, although Dumbledore was an old fool, he wouldn't have forgotten applying an anti-curse on treasures. He found himself a reason soon, however, perhaps the special characteristic of philosopher’s stone resisted anti-curses.

Quirrell started heading back to the entrance. Only the headmaster and those who had permission could apparate in Hogwarts, he had to leave the land, and then he could hand his master the stone with honor.

He started climbing the stairs. It went straight into the darkness, ripping off its visitor’s sense of time and distance once the base was covered by darkness.

Quirrell’s exciting heart cannot bear the happiness when he saw the dim light shining from above. He saw eager to see his master’s face and urge for praise, completely ignorant that, after the infinite stairs, he had to sneak out the castle and land without raising suspicion.

He turned his head backward brainlessly, trying to see his master’s face. He didn’t see the ugly face mounted behind her head, instead of a regular crystal sparkling red light in the dark.

Few meters just above them, the vibration of the harp’s strings hadn’t dissipated, the three-dead dog sleeping lightly in its dream. Few meters below them, the horrible scream hadn’t diffused, the inaudible echoes reverberating in the dark.

He soon realized the foolishness in his action. Shaking his head, he continued to climb the stair. Soon he heard Voldemort hissing. “What are you doing? The stone isn’t moving.”

Quirrell turned again, only finding the stone was more than unmoving. It was floating backward slowly but steadily accelerating. Quirrell shouted “Accio! Accio!” with his wand waving, but nothing had happened.

The man had noticed his treasure, the treasure that was valuable enough for him to pay a visit to the underworld, was leaving him for his foolish act.

“Use your hand.” The face ordered.

Quirrell pleaded “Please, master. My…my hand will…”

“Now!” Voldemort shouted angrily. “Now or never!”

Quirrell obeyed, intercepting the stone with his shaking hand. Unsurprisingly the stone steadily went through the tissues like a red-hot blade cutting through butter.

“Your body,” Voldemort ordered coldly. He understood he couldn’t get the stone this time, but he didn’t know what they had missed. That didn’t matter now. What mattered was his host, one of the people knowing where he was hiding.

Herein, the ritual was complete. Quirinus Quirrell, walking in the artificially planned script, could not evade the musician’s fate, which was weaved into culture and history for thousands of years by poets and historians.

Quirrell could not control his body anymore. He saw his body jumped into the path of the stone, only being penetrated within a second.

The stone floated slowly down the stairs, directly into a woman’s palm. The destructive crystal didn’t do any damage to it, not even a single burnt.

The woman looked distracted when the stone flew into her hand. She stared at the stone, sighed. “Expect for Hades, who will stare at a soul for 70 years?” she muttered. She then folded her palm, the crystal disappeared into nothing, “but, I have nothing to do with the boy.”

 

< 

Harry Potter woke up in the infamy. “The stone! They’ve gotten the stone!” He yelled, his head still hurts from Quirrell’s spell.

“Calm down, my boy.” It was the figure with a long white beard who spoke. “The philosopher’s stone is safely in Nicolas Flamel’s hands. The one at Hogwarts was a fake one, though they are deciding to destroy the real one regarding the chaos it has caused.”

“Does that mean they are going to die?” Harry asked.

“Yes indeed,” Dumbledore answered. “For them, death is only a unique chance for an experiment on the path to the truth.”

“You received the letter from Hermione and Ron,” Harry guessed, “did you fight q and Voldemort?”

“No,” Dumbledore answered, “when I was back Quirrell was already dead.”

Harry gapped in shock. “How…other professors kill him?”

“He was dead before anyone found him. I must say, I’m glad that I’ve invited professor Binns to set up one of the challenges. The reality has proven that the best defense of any treasure is treasure itself.”

“I don’t understand, professor. Professor Binns is a ghost, how can a ghost…” Harry asked in confusion. He knew every professor had set one of the defenses, but the history of magic?

“I better leave that for your friends.” Seeing the redden face of Hermione, he smiled. “I guess Miss Granger has an explanation.”

Everyone fixed their gazes on the Gryffindor know-it-all, who dipped her head nervously. Dumbledore had already left, leaving them time to chat.

“Do you remember what Knowledge called us when she sent us downward?” Hermione asked.

“Orpheus, I guess he was someone in Greek myths,” Harry replied.

“Yes, he was one of the heroes. To save his wife he opened a path to the underworld, lulled a three head dog to sleep, persuaded Hades’s wife to let him take his wife back to living world by playing music with one condition. He could not look at his wife before they left the underworld. On his way back, after climbing endless stairs, he saw the light. He turned his head to see his wife while violating the condition and lost his wife forever.” Hermione explained.

“Think about it. Isn’t that story similar to what Quirrell has done?” She continued, “Now I understand why professor McGonagall insisted the stone was perfectly safe. The final defense was based on the previous defenses. Fluffy can be easily lulled to sleep by music, so the theft will most likely use some musical instrument, which will put himself to Orpheus’s place in the scene since they both want some treasure from some underground place. When the theft starts to climb up, after getting the treasure, with a little nudge, he will likely turn around to face the stone again, just like what Orpheus had done, and will suffer the same consequence.” She concluded, “History of magic, the magic of history.”

Harry and Ron gapped, didn’t know what to say. After a while of silence, Ron was the first who recovered. He joked, “So that’s the reason why history classes are so boring. Nobody pays attention to history. At least Voldemort didn’t, obviously.”

The trio laughed. Harry teased, “The world depends on your history notes, Hermione!”

Hermione blushed, “Take your own note on the classes!”

< 

Harry was released from infamy days later, barely catching the end of school. Even though he knew Grifindor was not going to win the house cup, he didn’t pay enough attention to it. “Who do you think that Knowledge was?” He asked his companions.

“Knowledge…sounds Ravenclaw-ish,” Hermione suggested. “Do you know about that family, Ron?”

“Unfortunately, I know nothing about it.”

“I don’t remember she attending any of our classes, perhaps she’s older than a for a year or two.”

“We can ask Fred or Percy,” Ron suggested. “They should know about her if she was years ahead.”

“Sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry did Persephone's job in the story. That's why Patchouli claimed she had nothing to do with him.


	6. Witch of Love Potion

Alice paced behind Patchouli in the street of Diagon Alley. They were here to get books on her book list, well, actually, the seven books written by the same writer, Gilderoy Lockhart. The rest of them each had a copy stored in the library once they were published. She knew Patchouli wasn’t happy about this, for they didn’t need to buy all the textbooks. After all, those copies were stored for at least 70 years without any update, and now they were still suitable to be used as textbooks! _This defense teacher seems to be the progressive one._ She thought. _But these books sound more like novels to proper textbooks to me._

She nearly bumped into Patchouli’s back when she lost in her thoughts. Looking upward, she noticed they were already at Flourish and Blotts. A crowd of people stuck at the entrance, all yelling, and trying to squeeze through the entrance. Seeing the banner above the doorway, Alice frowned. There was no way for them to squeeze through these fanatics physically.

Regardless of the situation, Patchouli said, “You are going to get those books yourself, I have taught you some spells this summer.”

“Are we experimenting spells on people?” Alice asked curiously.

“You must be having redundant illusions, we are not going to experiment on humans.” Alice took a sigh of disappointment, she had had enough aiming at unmoving and un-responding dolls. But soon her interest raised again—Patchouli continued, “You are going alone.”

Almost overreacting, Alice slid her wand out from her sleeve. She had decided what spell she was going to try—shield charm, a modified one. _Let's see how effective exactly it is when repelling physical offense after my modification._

She paced firmly into the crowd, the invisible barrier squeezed people into all direction, making a path for her. Although it operated effectively, it was breaking down due to the energy consumption when bouncing people away. Sensing that a single shield charm was not able to last long enough for her to enter the bookstore, she switched to another plan. Focusing the remaining energy beneath her body, the ground exploded, pushing her upward and forward. Before the shield completely disassembled, she landed in the middle of the store.

The store was filled with people, even in the early morning. Someone seemed to be holding a book signing. She approached the shopkeeper, asking that if she can get those books without autograph on it. The shopkeeper was surprised, “Don’t you want an autograph on it? The signing will start in a few minutes.”

She could imagine what was about to happen based on these people’s behavior. “I have someone waiting for me.” She rejected.

When she was out of the bookstore, she found Patchouli chatting with a group of people, well actually, only two of them were responding. She noticed that they were along with the three kids she met on the Hogwarts third floor, so she approached and gave them greetings. Strangely their respond seemed to be overly polite, save two people who were overly excited.

Once they separated, she asked curiously, “They looked strange, what have you told them?”

“They have read my paper about Turritopsis dohrnii.”

“That’s what you spend the summer for? Figuring ways to return to your younger self?”

She nodded.

The little face of Alice became dignified for the first time, “you want to attend school with me?”

She nodded again.

“Don’t even think about that!” Alice exclaimed, “One Shinki is enough! Do you know what I was feeling when I found out that my childhood friend was actually my Mom?”

Patchouli rolled her eyes, _she didn’t forget fabricating this memory? Always being rigorous on unimportant things._ But it was a lie if she didn’t want to shrink herself and reattend school with Alice, so she justified, “I’m just feeling bored always overwhelming you with intelligence in discussions. A fair competition should be more interesting.”

Alice was outraged by her saying, neglecting that they were still in the middle of the street. “Don’t be so arrogant you hag! It won’t cost me five years to catch you up! Just wait and see!” She just turned and ran off toward the Apothecary, no longer paying attention to Patchouli anymore. She wouldn’t leave her alone on the street anyway.

“She’s still so cute, isn’t she?” The air beside Patchouli fluctuated, leaving a woman’s voice. Patchouli curved her lips, _cute indeed._

< 

Alice was sitting in the last cabin of Hogwarts Express, spreading out _Break with a Banshee_ on the table, earlier than anyone else. She didn’t have the burden of luggage, Patchouli would directly bring them to the school; she didn’t spend time bidding farewells like others did to their parents either, Patchouli wasn’t even around in the library these days, ending up that she had to come to the king’s cross by herself.

The train departed soon enough, any later they might not arrive at Hogwarts in time. She remained the single one in the cabin, a few cabins ahead seemed to be empty as well _. They really should improve the train. Either removing some cabins that are obviously not used by anyone_ , she surveyed the frequently used branches and tables, and thought otherwise, _or speed up the non-express-ish train and delay the departure so that people who slept-in won’t miss the train._

As if responding to her thought, minutes later, a bushy-haired witch snapped the door open. Without clearly looking into the cabin, she requested anxiously, “Have you seen Harry Potter around on the train?”

_Well, someone who didn’t slept-in missed the train as well._ “Wasn’t he staying with you and the Weasleys?” she questioned back, already knowing the answer though.  “Not on the train, not on the station either.” She returned back to her reading.

The witch finally recognized her, “Oh good morning Knowledge, I’m sorry that I didn’t notice you before.” She noticed that Alice was reading something, “What are you reading”

“Good morning, Granger,” Alice lifted the book up for Hermione to view the book cover, giving it the comment she saw fit, “bedtime story.”

Hermione seemed being offended, “This is our Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook, not a bedtime story! How can you fall to sleep after reading such an adventurous story?”

“Your brain seems sober,” Alice commented, “I believe your understanding of me as a second-year student, otherwise, you wouldn’t use “our” since there is nobody else in the cabin, based on the book I am reading. That _Break with a Banshee_ wasn’t published recently, and Lockhart's fans should have bought and read the entire book as soon as it was published. The only people who read this book now can only be Hogwarts second-year students or new fans of his. I believe you had asked someone in the school about me since the last meeting of us.”

Hermione gapped, spending a while to figure it out, “What if…what if that was only a spoken mistake? Wouldn’t rambling so much make you sound silly?”

“Reasonable risk, limited to an acceptable range,” Alice smiled, “and I am quite handy at the memory charm.”

Hermione decided to end this topic. Bidding farewell, she returned to her cabin which her friends were in. Time passed quickly after Alice returned to her book, bedtime story, and fall asleep. Waking up in the sharp whistle of the train and noise of people shifting their trunks, she had lost most of the interest to the defense class this year. _What’s the use of this kind of textbooks? Wasting paragraphs and paragraphs on describing useless details, not acceptable as a textbook at all._

She started changing into the robe, stopping halfway to rub her eyes serval times, and departed the train along with other students. Her half-awake brain only remembered one thing, that Patchy had told her to follow the first years and sort after?...or before them. That didn’t matter though, she got to make sure she didn’t step into water half-consciously and drown to death.

Following the half-giant with only a lamp in a dark night on a rough path was not an easy task, but she managed to catch up with others. Strangely, her yes operated well even in the dim light, revealing every slippery rock and hidden traps.

Floating toward the castle of Hogwarts on boats was a remarkable experience; standing in the main hall of Hogwarts and looking upward at the magically charmed ceiling was a remarkable experience as well, despite the being focused by the sight of nearly all students in the hall. The experience continued when she was ordered to put on a funny-looking and speaking sorting hat.

“How did they create you?” Alice asked, “Stuffing a poor completely-oblivated soul inside as a driver?”

She didn’t suppress her voice, ending up that the head of Gryffindor standing beside stiffened under her question; as if the glory of her house was questioned instead. Students in the hall were unaware of the elder witch’s change of posture, though, few figures concentrating on the sorting for different reasons noticed the sudden discomfort of their colleague.

Alice, though her eyes were covered completely by the over-large hat, noticed the movement of the person standing beside. Remembering that the hat was the belonging of Godric Gryffindor, who was famous for a chivalry worshiper, she understood what had touched the head of Gryffindor’s nerve.

The hat remained in silence for a while, not responding to any of her questions or thoughts. Finally, before she became impatient with waiting in complete silence, the hat proclaimed, “Slytherin!”

< 

Seeing Alice politely removing the hat, returning it to the witch, and walking toward the table with the most intense applause, Patchouli turned her head toward the headmaster. “Alice said that she has been bored being a puppeteer, wanting to experience the feeling of being a doll.” The awkward expression on the headmaster’s face made her sigh, “Are you puppeteers behave so strange?” she asked. It was not the first time Alice wanted to experience being a doll, well, in fact, she was a doll, homunculus, or something beyond. But this is the first time she wiped out her memory during the process.

Patchouli aimlessly stared at Slytherin’s table, not knowing what would happen in their experiment. Different from Alice, she was not the manipulative type of person. Instead of playing with her opponents on a chessboard, breaking the board, the table beneath, and the opponents if possible with overwhelming power was time efficiency, especially if her research was left undone.

< 

Dumbledore left the hall halfway, returning with one irritated potion master, barely managing to catch up with the desserts. Finishing up with his plate while urging the potion master to give the dessert before him a try, he stood up and made all foods disappear from the tables. His eyes dimmed a bit when patchouli’s totally untouched plates were removed. Students, who observed this new figure on the professor’s table during the meal, noticed that she hadn’t consumed anything as well.

The introduction of new faculties was as normal as usual for most of the people, the only exception when Lockhart was introduced. As he stood up and perform some fancy style of greeting, some cheered in excitement while others sat in silence with detest. As in Patchouli’s turn, she simply waved her hand once or twice, not bordering giving any verbal response.

Then she flipped open the neglected book she had placed on the table, drawing out a stack of snowy white paper under everyone’s gazes. Dumbledore beside examed it with curious eyes, these were certainly not brownish parchment mostly used in Hogwarts, or in fact, in any other wizarding societies.

Patchouli read through the papers, while students were organized and led to their dorms. Most of them didn’t recognize the flashy white sheets. The witch didn’t move when the hall was emptied; Dumbledore remained as well. He seemed too curious about the stack of paper to leave.

Scanned over the contents, Patchouli raised her head and found out the headmaster and the potion master who joined soon after quietly demanding an answer. They glanced the papers she had set aside, found out it was mainly some mysterious graphs and charts. The potion master happened to recognize these muggle paper, showing an equivalent amount of curiosity.

“Rejuvenator in theoretical stage.” She said, “my co-worker asked me to examine serval concepts of construction,” she paused, “with my special equipment.” Ignoring their shock faces, she collected her belongings and headed to the library. She was going to spend some nights there, first to set up some protections on those bookcases, and second to see to those un-recoverable books Madam Prince had told her earlier.

< 

Alice followed her fellow Slytherins to the common room located beneath the lake, frequently annoyed that as a second year she might have to share a bedroom with others, meaning she cannot maintain her usual routine as in the library.

_Maybe they will give me a single room since all the second-year rooms are full._ She thought optimistically. Professor Snape, the head of the house, made a few announcements—no night tour after curfew, new students would be lead to their dorm by prefects, and so on and so forth—and left in quick strides.

A prefect found her after all first-year students were taken care of, and lead her up to her room. “This is your room of seven years.” She said, “good night.”

Bidding the sixth-year prefect farewell, she pushed into her single room. She was too tired to be amazed by the identical room as hers in the library, too tired to check any possible remnants by Patchy, who should be the one who tidied this room, too tired to wonder why she was always sleepy today as well.

Quickly finishing up her casual routines, she dropped to the four-poster bed decorated mainly in lilac and fell asleep.


	7. Intermezzo

She wasn’t the first student in the hall, even though she woke up quite early in the day when the first beam of sunlight was just about to cast shadows in the gloomy Slytherin’s common room. The sleep in her room effectively boosted her mood, unlike the snap she took on the train.

She sat and started serving herself house-elf-made breakfast until the second Slytherin appeared in the hall. Alice recognized her as one of the girls who she failed to communicate since they sat too far apart last night.

The girl approached her, “It’s unusual for a first-year to get up this early.” and simply claimed.

“I thought they will tell you,” Alice replied, implying Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson whom she sat near to last night, “I am a second-year transfer student, I can wake up earlier than this. And what’s your name?”

“I am Daphne Greengrass.” She replied, sitting next to her and pouring herself a cup of milk. “You can call me Daphne.” She said.

Alice eyed her strangely; she had expected Slytherins to be more…arrogant. “Sure, Daphne, just call me Alice then.” She replied.

With the time passing, more students appear in the hall, noise gradually filling the space. Just before it became insufferable for Alice, she stood up and intended to leave. “I am paying library a visit,” she said, seeing a gang of Slytherins was heading in her direction, “see you in Transfiguration.”

Sliding through the Malfoy’s heir, who introduced himself last night after sorting, and his useless dolls while giving him a slight nod and greeting, she headed on to the library. Just before she left the hall, something across seemed to explode, but she had other business to pay attention to—Patchy hadn’t given her textbook yet! Even though she really didn’t need any of them, it was so impolite to appear in class without anything.

The library was deserted in the morning, nearly everyone was in the dining hall, and the others were still in their bed, except for one person—Madam Prince was sleeping on her desk. She found Patchy in the forbidden district behind one bookcase, applying magical defenses to books. The herbal witch noticed her appearance once Alice found her, but made no comment on her sneaking into the restricted area. Even more, she quietly raised the index finger to her lips, warned her for awakening the sleeping witch outside.

 Making no comment on the new librarian’s abuse of power, she stretched her hand, silently asking for her textbooks and parchments. Patchouli stopped her enchanting, looking at her in faked confusion. The silent confrontation lasted a while, finally grabbed Alice’s hand into hers, as she had suddenly realized something, and passionately stared into Alice’s eyes.

Alice spent most of her willpower suppressing her desire of breaking free, rolling her eyes as much as possible instead. _Why do you think I am here? Give me my textbook!_

Seeing her reaction, Patchouli knew she was near the limit. Bending down, she whispered to the blonde’s ear, “I have put those books in your room,” loosening her grip, “and the Transfiguration and Herbology textbooks are in your hand know.”

Alice withdrew her hand, on which two tiny books perched. She heard Patchy speaking again, “I guess you know how to spell a simple _Finite Incantatem_ ,” with her words the books grew into their normal size, “touching a symbol inside the cover will shrink it ten seconds later, be aware.”

< 

Now holding the books with both of her hand, Alice left the library. Madam Prince was awakened right after the witch left the library, barely catching a blurred back of someone. She found the new librarian walking out from the restricted section before she fully recalled why she was not in her chamber.

“You said you are going to help me with the procedures,” Seemed to know what she was thinking, the witch’s word answered her question, “but you were obviously not good at stay up late, or actually, stay overnight.” While collecting herself together, she saw one restricted book the witch was holding in her hands, the book about whimsy thoughts of unforgivables, floated and flew into the section behind automatically.

She gagged, a bit for seeing the magic, but mostly at the things this woman made her do last night—applying protection wards on every book in the library before the term starts. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to protect her precious books properly—she was disgusted by the cookie scraps and saliva marks and oil stains on the returned books—she was more than willing to oblige. But she couldn’t hold long when seeing exactly what protections were applied: fireproof, waterproof, thermostatic, non-deformable, potion-resistance, moisture-resistance, antifouling, anti-foraging, so on and so forth. All these features were integrated into one simple chant, which should be a energy consuming one. However, it wasn’t the case. The energy extracted from her magic resource of one enchanting was similar to that of a substantive charm. She suspected these enchanted books had connected themselves with Hogwarts's defenses. She remembered she fell asleep after finishing the non-restricted part, leaving Patchouli to do all the works.

Thanks to the hard work of the librarians, before the first student lay hands on any books, intensive magic protections were settled onto every piece of paper.

< 

On the Transfiguration class, they were taught to turn beetles into buttons, which Alice put an effort to suppress her desire to show off. She observed her classmates carefully, while randomly flipping her wand. Serval Ravenclaws and Slytherins were able to find the knack of it after serval attempts. A Ravenclaw, being addressed as Padma Patil by Professor McGonagall, succeed after a few more tries, being the first in the class and earning ten points to Ravenclaw. Other students followed soon after. Alice secretly remembered their name and speed, marking it as the peer level of her age. Well, not her age, but the age of Hogwarts second-year students.

She acted similarly in the greenhouse during Herbology as well, keenly observing others and noting their performance for later uses. It was boring to brutally overwhelm opponents with sheer power, not artful at all. If she only paid similar or slightly more effort in school’s study than her peer level students, it would be more amusing, even if it meant to lose. She could liberate her free time as well, spending them on other activities that were not taught at Hogwarts.

They were replanting mandrake in class, moving them from one pot, which was clearly the product of previous class judging on the rough appearance, to another. The inhuman humanoid creature struggled and screamed uselessly once it was plugged out by Alice, creating a great number of obstacles for her group to plant it in another pot.

It was Pansy Parkinson who held the plant in her group, struggling to force it into the pot. Alice saw her curse under rapid breaths, _I will tear your head off,_ she recognized. Giving Pansy a slight on the shoulder, she requested the mandrake. She confirmed that Professor Sprout wasn’t looking at this direction, then tore off a left blade from the figure’s head and tied its “hands” and “legs” firmly with it.

Pansy happily stuff it into the mud, until only the “head” of mandrake remained uncovered. Alice untied it, stripping the leave and feeding it to the tentacula behind. The cutting of the leave remained, but people from the previous class seemed tore off a few more. _No one will find out_. She thought.

Pansy questioned her why didn’t she use magic ropes instead.

“Foolish, do you want to attract the Professor?”

< 

Returning to her dorm during lunch break, she paid an effort to find out the textbooks Patchy had hidden in her room. They were shrunk, like her Transfiguration and Herbology textbooks, and placed all around the room. The series of books for Defence Against the Dark Arts was first to be found—lying peacefully in the drawer of her nightstand. _Bedtime stories indeed._

She started, heading to the DADA’s classroom after retrieving those books since she was almost late for class. When she arrived at the classroom, almost everyone was sitting already, save the Harry Potter who was chatting with Professor Lockhart in the corridor she met on her way here. She caught a few words; they seemed to talk about signed photos.

She shrugged on this idea, that someone handing out their selfies with a board smile and putting their autographs on them. _If I ever want autographs from someone,_ her thought drifted away when sitting next to Daphne Greengrass and waiting for the professor, _would she spend her time on taking meaningless photos?_

The class began with a quiz, which consisted of sixty-four questions, occupying three full parchments, artfully designed to test students’ knowledge of Gilderoy Lockhart himself. Since she read those books as bedtime stories, constantly falling asleep halfway and having difficulties catching up the other day, she left most of the questions in the blank, save the question about Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite color, which she remembered perfectly well.

“Who is Hermione Granger?” Professor Lockhart asked in passion after he had collected and flipped through all the quizzes.

The bushy-hair witch sitting in the first row raised her hand, earning ten points for her house. Alice noticed Draco sitting nearby was suppressing his scoff only with a small effort. While the professor had introduced the Cornish Pixies as devilishly trickly creatures, he was paying that effort at all, as well as other students.

In an instant, the professor had lifted the cage, letting the pixies loose. In another instant, those who were laughing previously were at the door, trying to squeeze through the narrow entrance.  The others were attacked by the flying creatures—some were thrown out of windows. Alice was shocked, _this isn’t Prague, right? Why are we having defenestration?_

Daphne who sat beside her, now already standing, tried to wake her out of dazzle, asked, “Are you coming or not?”

Alice replied without knowing the question, while slapped a pixie flying toward her onto the ground, “I hope there are a compost heap instead of spears below.”

Not knowing where did the answer come from, Daphne understood Alice was awoken nonetheless. But later doubt that she was not sober at all.

“I am staying behind, I can leave as you wish.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Daphne demanded, they were almost the only few left in the room now, difficulty dogging the pixies. She looked around the classroom and found out Lockhart was gone, leaving the Gryffindor trio behind. She could not determinate whether the door was locked, or they were simply as mad as this Knowledge.

Discovering they had lost their leeway, she became calm again. “Perfect, now we can’t leave now. Why are you not leaving?” she asked, madly conjuring protections around her and aimlessly blasting pixies away.

“Uh,” Alice shrugged, “perhaps to earn some points?” speaking in an uncertain tone.

The trio had started freezing pixies one by one, cleaning up the messes using freezing charm, which Daphne quickly noticed and imitated to remove those evil creatures. Until now she finally had time to see what Alice was doing. She soon found out Alice was maneuvering in a random pattern, effectively dogging any projectiles thrown in her direction. Once pixies flew near her, she would, magically or physically, knock them onto the ground. A dozen unconscious bodies were already lying near her path. It was commendable that none of them were stepped on during the chaos.

They effectively clean up the loosened pixies, stuffing them back into the cage, when the professor finally returned to the room. “Ah! Very good! It seems you have…pass my…uh…exams! Ten points each to Gryffindor and Slytherin!”

Once they were on the corridor, Daphne urged her to join their Quidditch team, “They were recruiting now,” she said, “you are definitely qualified.” Seeing Alice heading straight to their common room, she continued, “you can find the announcement in the common room if you wish to join.”

The witches advise was helpful, joining the Quidditch team was one legitimate way to free herself from prison, something called gravity. She really should consider this, so that her precious broom would not just collect dust in the following years.

The announcement of signing up for the house team was sticking on the notice board. She found out that the try out would take place on Wednesday afternoon. It declared that anyone wanted to join should have experience in flying with brooms with a performance at least better than or equivalent to Nimbus 2000, for “a better cooperation with teammates”. Many came and read the announcement, and left with clear disappointment. Some people, in a small amount, were secretly glad that they were spoiled by generous parents.

Alice recalled the broom, which declared to have a 380 thousand kilometers lift limit by its name. She was also glad that she had been effectively spoiled by someone as well.

< 

Most of the classes in Hogwarts required students to have dogging skills higher than ordinary wizards and witches. On Potions, one cauldron on the other side of classroom exploded into pieces. One of them grazed through her raised right arm—she could feel the heat radiating from it—and hit the bottle filled with fairy wing in the storage cabinet through the door, which was left open, effectively setting fire to them. The head of her house was not pleased, taking a point from the poor Gryffindor boy Neville Longbottom, one of the survivors of the defenestration of Hogwarts. Well, all of them survived, even though there wasn’t compost pile under the window.

In Friday’s Charm, a broken wand, which was shot from nowhere, flew pass her tilted head during practicing, leaving a dark plump on professor Flitwick's forehead. The head of Ravenclaw was more lenient about the situation, and he recommended the redhead Gryffindor to get a new wand.

Defenestration hadn’t appeared again in the week, neither did other evil creatures. Professor Lockhart seemed to learn from the experience, turning his focus on cosplaying and stage show. One of the most frequent guests was Harry Potter. Not surprisingly, Defence Against the Dark Arts became one of the safest course, the other being History of Magic.

The History of Magic was not as bored as others had claimed to be. Even though Professor Binns’s voice had hypnotized many into sleep, a proper magician wouldn’t be affected by simple distraction. In Patchy’s standard, only two living creature in the room, or three if including the half-dream-half-awake Pansy Parkinson who was obviously struggling to resist the lullaby, were proper magic users.


	8. Crimson Beyond a Fleeting Eternity

On Saturday’s morning, members of the Slytherin Quidditch team met in the common room. Every member selected into the team received a brand new Nimbus 2001 sponsored by Mr. Malfoy. With their fair share of experience in high-speed brooms, they should be able to be familiar with these 2001s in a short period of time.

Alice didn’t change her broom into Nimbus 2001 though, as her Patchy-modified broom was much better in her hands. The heir of Malfoy did not need the new broom either. According to him, he had practiced flying with Nimbus 2001 during the entire summer, saving his father an amount of investment with almost no payback.

The administration of Hogwarts in the beginning week seemed to be chaotic, for there already was one team practicing on the pitch when they arrived with the note of permission from Professor Snape. Alice approached Madam Hooch with the permission, but clearly, she was confused as well.

The rest of her team and the Gryffindor team had confronted each other in the middle of the pitch when they figured out the permission was signed after the Gryffindors’s booking. She sighed, urging those teenagers with excessive testosterone into a retreat was impossible.

When she came near to the crowd, she heard Malfoy saying, “…a museum would bid for them.”

“What can be sold to the museum?” She asked, “my broom?” In her mind, within all these rub…things, only her broom was worthy of a place in any sort of museum.

 “Those Cleansweep Five.” While laughing, one teammate without a name told her.

Alice’s eyes sweep over those old but well-maintained brooms, “If it was a museum with multiple floors, buying those seems reasonable.”

The Slytherins were confused, not knowing what was her point, as well as the other team. Harry and Hermoine, though, were hiding chuckles behind breaths, knowing this was not a situation for them to laugh.

“What?” Malfoy asked, obviously being too far from actual magical museum and library cleaning.

“So the cleaner wouldn’t need to climb the stairs?” Hermione suggested, enjoying the heir’s foolishness.

“No one is asking for your opinion, you filthy Mudblood.”

A chaos scene was created almost immediately, Hermione saw the Weasley twins throwing themselves onto Malfoy, only be stopped by Slytherin’s team captain. Two teams were yelling at each other, save for Alice. She seemed to immerse in her own memories and seemed to be amused by them, judging by her expression. The burst and greenlight caused by Ron’s wand backfire disturbed both of them; the victim was vomiting slugs now.

The Gryffindors retreated toward the edge of the pitch, surrounding Ron Weasley. The Slytherins kept laughing, not willing to pick themselves from the ground, in the middle of the now emptied field.

“Most ancient magus would apply wards on their belongings,” After practice, on their way back to the castle, Alice explained toward the blonde walking beside, who stared her throughout the practice, “when collectors find them, the wards may degrade into something incomplete structures, yet they will be triggered when detecting magic.”

If there were chances to expand his wisdom, he was more than willing to have a try—his father was mad at him when the first of the year was taken by someone new to magic, pouring ideas of family glory into his head during the entire summer when he was not flying—and his subconscious told her ignoring Knowledge’s speech was not a good idea at all, even though he was more eager to ask her question, a more serious question that was not about the wards.

“They mostly see those corrupted wards as a part of their collections, so very few of them will remove the ward entirely, even though they are totally adequate on doing that. This makes most magical museums and libraries magic-free. Any magic directly applied to the ancient wards may lead to unpredictable outcomes. One of the serious accidents directly caused the decline of a house.”

“A curse?” Draco asked.

“An explosion which wiped out one mansion and set the forest beside on fire. You must know which house it belonged to.”

Most ancient pureblood houses were on downhill these days, but there was only one house within the sacred twenty-eight which didn’t have their manor. “The Black,” he stated.

“That’s all you wanted to ask, right?” they were approaching the front door now, “I am going to the library now.”

“That wasn’t what I want to ask in the first place,” he stated, “something is prior than that.” Seeing his bodyguards had noticed them and were heading toward them from the hall, he demanded, “what was your expression when I said Mudblood back on the pitch?”

Alice replied lazily, walking forward as if his question and the word meant nothing, “Scoffing. Isn’t you were doing that as well?”

“But you were scoffing us!” Draco snorted, “don’t think I cannot tell the difference. Which side you are on?”

Alice sighed, “Should I say you are a perfect match to the Parkinsons, or should I say I am really a horrible actress?” She continued before he replied, “In Romania, if you call wizards Mudblood, regardless of origin, they will be very pleased.” She stopped walking, watching his face turned into utter disbelieve.

“The country was ruled by vampires, do you know how they distinguish pureblood and Mudblood? They took a little bite and then classified the delicious ones as pure, and the others as mud. That I guess was the origin of those two words, even though they evolved into entirely different things when human got rid of them. If so-called pureblood families in Romania were actually vampires’ farms, What do you think my attitude will be when seeing some vampire’s dinner discriminate on others, saying that ‘you are not worthy because your blood is not as delicious as mine’?”

“You lied,” Draco mumbled. His face was as pale white now.

“I may have lied,” the bodyguards were close enough to hear their conversation now, “but pay Romania a visit and investigate yourself won’t harm you a bit. That is the only place still ruled by vampires, I guess. Don’t be afraid, the vampires are conservative, they shouldn’t be interested in foreign meals.”

<

The soul of self-proclaimed lard was still struggling with the mansion. After consuming everyone in the nearby village, he had been familiar with most of the defenses. If he can put his hands on the philosopher's stone, he would have more chances of breaking the final barriers with the aid of elixir of life.

But he had no hands on the philosopher’s stone, and he was nowhere near the front door of the mansion behind the garden. He had to retreat now, the disappearance of the village had raised too much awareness. Not that he was afraid of those muggle governments, he was afraid of his future alliance to the vampires instead. Who knew if there was some restriction within the society that would classify his action as cheating. He was satisfied with his effort, knowing that if he had an actual body which truly belonged to him, he might pass the defense with ease.

He felt betrayed when none of his servants hadn’t come to find him, otherwise, he would have gotten his body way before this, and taken the mansion as a price.

< 

Lucius Malfoy was confused and furious at what his son had written to him, _How could that girl insult them like this?_ But his subconscious knew that his anger came from the fear that the purebloods were foods.

A simple research granted him an expected answer. The earliest vampire recorded on papers started operating actively before the tenth century, earlier than any organized magical family had appeared, it seemed to provide evidence for the girl's claim.

He was shocked at the possibility, that they were purposely modified for feeding the beasts. It scared him more as he recalled the Dark Lord had requested help from the vampires, yet no one knew what would be the price. He knew one thing and that turn his fear into a horrified doubt. The pureblood families, or the conservatives, were seeking a revolution to retrieve all the power scattered in the ministry. The previous generation much preferred a monarchy, with a puppet ruler. Tom Riddle was the one his father and others had chosen, even though he was a half-blood. But in their eyes, blood prejudice didn’t really matter when stood in the way of enough profits. His family grabbed enough profits in investing in the developing muggle world, he had to admit blood prejudice was nonsense.

_Yes, he is a half-blood, and according to the girl, the vampire doesn’t like deteriorated foods. As long as he feeds us to the vampires, his throne will be safe. It’s really a failure, we contain so many renowned families, yet we were all fooled by that puppet._

“I am going to Romania for a final check,” he said to his wife, who was clearly concerned, “don’t be worried, I am not going alone.”

Modified or not, his family’s wealth and glory were not the results of the purity of blood. Who would believe that? As a daily pastime, fine, but it was never decisive in their eyes, well perhaps except Slytherin. What bothered him was the Dark Lord’s trap, they would have to figure out a way to solve it.

< 

Alice didn’t feel very well about her estimation of peer’s level in the first few weeks. One witch was always studying and learning, dragging her estimation up for an entire level. Originally, she would just accept failure, why always trying to beat everyone in your sight? But if she remained competing with other students in her year, it would be too boring. Her daily routine was to sit through the classes and stared at Patchy in the library after them. Until one day, Patchy could not stand this and gave her a reminder of her claim that she would catch up with her in five years.

Alice moved her sight away, she totally forgot about this!

The librarian claimed steadily, “You are not competing with your peers, Alice. You are competing with me. Forget about your estimation. I always like overwhelming my opponents.”

Now being reminded of her goal and who her opponent was, Alice shivered. _That was a joke!_ She wanted to shout but was forced back by Patchy’s cold glare. “Is surrender an option?” She asked eagerly.

The librarian seemed to considered the idea for a while, “Even though I myself is very interested in holding you as captive, but no. I would not allow you to surrender.”

Alice made a face, she at least had something to do now.


	9. Necro-Fantasia

After driving leisure witch away from the library, Patchouli was reminded that Halloween was approaching. It would be good if Alice could come with her during the dinner.

The Slytherins surprisingly founded out that their house finally had someone who can complete with the Gryffindor know-it-all. Even though this one was more intolerable—she held the hobby of taunting people, such as saying “is your brain filled with Ancient Roman cement?”, when someone asks her question. They were glad for the consistency of house point income, and after all, she did answer questions perfectly. She never gave direct answers though, but Slytherins were glad about the inspiring tips and hints she normally gave.

Miss. Know-it-all sadly found out that she had to share part of her house point income with Alice, and her part seemed to be decreasing steadily, even though Alice never raised her hands. She was always the first one who succeeds in any spell practices. Potion brewing might be the only section she had to spent more time on, due to the restricted brew time. Hermione’s gust twisted everytime recalling Alice’s reaction when Malfoy said the word on the pitch. She could not understand why would she hold such an anti-genetics opinion. What’s more, her…relative seemed to be in the field of biology.

Mr. Savior was worried to no end—with seven Nimbus 2001, they might lose the Quidditch cup. This meant the house cup would likely belong to Slytherin this year if nothing was happening the rest of the year. But what concerned him the most was the invitation to Sir Nicholas’s Deathday Party after he served the detention with Filch.

Alice was unaware of the other’s problem, for she had a greater problem herself to deal with. Going to class now was entirely a waste of time—she had self-learned rest of the content of the year by now—and it was impolite to do other things in class.

_I wonder how she is going to regard “catching up”. If it is about the reserve of knowledge…_ She sighed at the thought, knowing Patchy’s extent too well—if she said she could not summarize every book in the library, that would be a lie. Even so, she decided to have a try. If she could surpass Patchy on one field, that would be enough to interest her. _You wouldn’t be bored these years, Patchy._

The first thing to do was to get her hands on those manuscripts and books she left in the library. Reading and understanding those scripts was one of her major activities before school, and what was recorded would be one of the primary things she wanted to do during and after school. Those were easy to get, actually, she only had to visit Patchy in the library in the library and asked for them, and she had done exactly the same thing. The direct consequence was the new bookshelves in her room, filled with organized notes. She didn’t get those books though, Patchy forbade her from taking those books from the library, claiming that she wouldn’t treat them well enough. It was not a great deal—Alice was going to spend most of her time in the library anyway, and Dumbledore and Prince didn’t question those new books occurring in the library. One major drawback was that those books were stored in the restricted section, and a second-year being seen entering the section frequently was not unnoticeable.

< 

“What do you think she was doing in the restricted section?” Harry asked, eyeing the figure across the hall which was holding some sort of parchments during breakfast. If it was not Alice who helped them last year, he was going to believe, like other Gryffindors, that she was learning dark arts. Actually, in Slytherin and other houses, very few believed that—why would headmaster allow someone to participate in dark arts under his noses?

“Up to no good, of course!” Ron Weasley, being one classic Gryffindor, was obviously fond of the idea, “Remember her expression when Malfoy said that word? I assure you she was helping us only because she didn’t know who we are!” and his reasoning seemed reasonable.

“I think we properly introduced ourselves,” Hermione suggested uncertainly, “and she didn’t react much hearing them.”

“That’s because she could not stop us afterward, not doing things that are unprofitable, classic Slytherin.” Master of Slytherin affairs, Ronald Weasley, had his own unique ways of analyzing Slytherin-ish motives under everything Slytherins had done. Even though the reason Alice helped them was classic Gryffindor-ish—for fun.

“Enough for that,” Harry ended the topic, “the major problem now was how should we deal with the deathday party tonight.” The great hall would be holding Halloween party tonight, with carved giant pumpkins and invited skeleton dancers, but they were not participating. Harry believe they would be the only three not joining the feast—why wouldn’t anyone look forward to such a feast?

< 

A certain dark arts learner was more than willing to not join the dinner like others. The alternative Patchy provided was more interesting—close contact and observation of a bunch of ghosts. Normal people wished to scare the ghosts off, being afraid that the ghosts would take away their life forces and revive themselves. Regarding this, Alice suggested that she could put the ghosts in need in her dolls, well, dolls that were still experimenting. Consumers might suffer a series of side effects, including but not limited to unconsciousness, out of their own control, and self-detonation in extreme condition.

Long thin black with blue flames dancing on top casted shadows on their faces. The temperature seemed to drop every step they approached the room. After a corner, she found a ghost standing…floating near a boor with dark-purple curtain, greeting all the guests.

He seemed shocked when seeing two living humans attending his party. “Had I invited you?” he asked.

Alice eyed the witch with despise, _coming here without an invitation?_

“Of course,” Patchouli said, “but you didn’t last long enough to receive the replies.”

The ghost was confused, and he realized what the witch was implying.

“I can tell not all Gryffindors were as brave as what they claimed to be,” she said, “but maybe it was reckless what sorted you into Gryffindor?”

The ghost suggested uncertainly, “Patchouli Knowledge? You aren’t dead yet?”

“If Nicolas Flamel can survive to this day, I can as well.”

The ghost led both of them into the room. He returned to his post afterward, claiming there were more guests coming. The ghosts inside were surprised to see some living beings attending the party, and the younger girl seemed to be not afraid of them at all. While some ghost, Peeves, decided to scare the girl off by flying through her. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not even tough her.

“I was always curious,” Alice said, “why do you ghosts have clothes.”

“The topic is too early for you!” Peeves laughed, but Alice ignored him.

“Clothes are not living things, they cannot be dead. They are not parts of your soul either,” She said, “The classic theory cannot explain this properly. If you are dead people’s souls, you won’t have so many details that don’t belong to your living body.”

Peeves founded out he was bounded by an unknown force near the living witch, couldn’t move forward or back when her gazes locked on his transparent body.

“An eastern view suggested that ghosts are mirages, twisted light signals, and packages of information bonded by a field people’s willpower when they were… dying. If this is true, generating an opposite field can effectively stop you.” Seeing Peeves still struggling in her bond, she smiled in satisfaction and release the bond, “It seems their theory is correct.”

Being released was a relief of Peeves. There was only one person who had caught him entirely before, even Albus Dumbledore could only kick him out of the castle. He would better leave this witch alone, who could imagine what would happen to the ghost of pranks if he was truly caught?

“Oh, by the way, disrupting the field thoroughly was not difficult. I assured some of you may want a peaceful death?”

He better left her alone.

< 

When the golden trio entered the room led by the Nearly Headless Nick, the first thing they saw was Peeves fleeing from a blonde witch. They didn’t believe meer student could have such a power, but judging by the Slytherin ghost floating behind her, Peeves’s action seemed normal.

“You invited them as well?” Ron asked, gesturing to the librarian and the girl. Patchouli fell into a heat conversation with Grey Lady, comforting her that she shouldn’t be ashamed only because she was the daughter of Ravenclaw and existed a longer time, yet she knew fewer things than Patchouli.

“Yeh...sorts of.” Nearly Headless Nick replied. He wonders who was the girl along with Knowledge, but he knew better to ask it now--she was too similar to Margatroid. _Maybe she was their daughter?_

The trio approached the blonde girl, who seemed to be the easiest target to do so in the room. “Hi, Knowledge. I didn’t expect anyone other than us to be here, why aren’t you upstairs?”

Alice looked at the trio. Three people showing different expressions. Harry was doing his best to pretend he was friendly; Ron was showing absolute hostile; and Hermione was somewhere between them, perhaps closer to Harry’s side.

“Why are you here?” She asked in return, “Why aren’t you enjoying the stupid feast up there?”

“I accepted the invitation.” Harry shrugged, “accidentally.” He added, “You didn’t answer my question, you got an invitation as well?”

“Patchy might have gotten an invitation. I haven’t. I am here simply because dead people are more interesting.”

Her words caused a slight chaos in the ghosts, some of them just witnessed how she subdued Peeves. Doubtlessly, if she wanted to stuff them in her dolls as her words—she invited them during their encounters on the corridors—they would have no places to run. Although receiving an artificial body seemed attractive, the dolls didn’t have the ability to taste as well, which was their most desperate sense.

After her claim, master of Slytherin affairs found evidence to proof Alice’s dark nature. Just before he eyed Hermione and express “I told you so” on the face, a sound of a horn interrupted his movement as well as Nearly Headless Nick’s attempted speech. A team of headless knights and horses penetrated the wall and rushed into the middle of the room. Most of the ghosts started to clap madly after they started to play with their heads.

The trio was planning to leave. Maybe they could catch up with the deserts—it was hard to find someone with an appetite after witnessing the ghosts’ eating. Although she didn’t understand their changeable expressions and attitudes between the few times they met each other in the year, she bet them farewell nonetheless. The master of Slytherin affairs had his comment on this—there must be something hiding behind the politeness! Well, there was—to be polite itself.

Someone’s head…some ghost’s head flew pass the room, accidentally slammed on Patchouli who was still discussing with Grey Lady. The ghost had a surprisingly good memory when chatting upon Patchouli and Alice’s student life. Of course, nearly everyone at that time knew how they evolved from rival to close friends. Their conversation was interrupted by the flying head, which slammed onto Patchouli’s protection and scattered into pieces—the field was not difficult to disrupt. It was a new issue though, could the near-death willpower be precise enough to separately create two parts of the body? Alice had noticed this, and she found out Patchy had noticed this as well from her eyes. What was more, she learned from her gazes that Patchy was going to toss this issue entirely on her.

The scene was ended by Patchouli explaining she could not create an identical head for the knight—the information had already escaped in the speed of light, they might be somewhere near the Mars’s orbit by now, with parts of them diffracted by the atmosphere. “If you really want a head,” she suggested, “You are always welcome to host in Alice’s doll. She can provide the personalized modification.”

_Don’t make the decision for others!_ Alice thought. “You can always come to me,” She said, “thank you for participating in the experiment.”

“Alice,” while Nearly Headless Nick was giving his speech after the accident, Patchouli suddenly asked the witch beside, “are the core of all puppets, regardless of their shape, humanoid or else, the same?”

Alice eyed her strangely, asking an irrelevant question when someone was speaking didn’t seem like Patchy’s behavior. She answered it though, nodding her head, “the core would only be a receptor of puppeteer's command, ideally.”

“Good.”

< 

They left the party after Nicholas’s speech, the ghosts were starting some activities not suitable for most living beings to participate.

They met a crowd of students on one floor, with someone yelling in the middle. The headmaster and other professors were doing their best to squeeze through them without harming each of them.

Patchouli walked toward the crowd. Some professor looked surprised, they didn’t saw her on the feast. Dumbledore’s expression was natural.

“Ah, Patchouli, something happened, please come with us.” He ignored Alice who walked next to the librarian.

Since Patchy didn’t stop her from following, Alice followed the adults into the center of the crowd. The caretaker and the golden trio were confronting there, along with an unmoving cat.

The caretaker accused Harry Potter of killing his cat, which was soon proven false when the headmaster performed a flashback charm of their wands. Still, they could not explain why they were the first three people arriving here without clear reason.

The heads of houses dismissed their students, telling head boy and girl and prefects to lead them back to their dorm, and Professor Lockhart invited the remain to his office. Being one of the students, Alice was subjected to return to the Slytherin common room, but she obviously didn’t want to. Obviously, something interesting had just happened, and being very un-Slytherin-ish, she wanted to at least discover it a bit before sleep. She then eyed Patchy with anticipation, _get me into there,_ hoping she would receive the message.

Patchouli received the message indeed. Even if Alice didn’t request that, she was going to bring her along anyway. “Alice, come with me.” She said.

Alice sadly discovered that she might have to spend some times afterward repeating what was going to happen in the next few hours, judging from her peers’ eyes and the curiosity barely hiding on their face. The Heir of Slytherin and the secret chamber, no wonder why they were that excited.

Giving them a nod, assuring them she would fulfill their wishes, she then left the flow and followed Patchy to the DADA professor’s office. The suspects with limited suspension and the victim with too many burdens and the judge and the jury were already there. The judge declared suspects non-guilty once they entered the room.

“Magic in such extent was impossible for three second-years,” Dumbledore said, “and we have already checked their wands, they are not the one responsible for Mrs. Norris’s petrifaction.”

“As for the cure, I believe there is one potion…” he eyed the potion master in question.

“Yes,” he replied, “the Mandrake Restorative Draught…” he eyed the Herbology professor in question instead.

“They will be fully grown in a few months, I have been checking them constantly.” She replied.

“A few months!” Filch cried, although no one could do anything to help him.

“There’s hardly anything we can do for Mrs. Norris,” Dumbledore assured the trusted old caretaker, “but I personally will prevent anything worse from happening to her.”

“I may be able to help you,” Patchouli suggested, attracting everyone’s attention in the room. “I think I have some instant grow methods in my library.”

Alice knew what was going to happen next, why Patchy would want her to come along. As expected, Patchy asked her to fetch the book in the library, claiming she knew its location. Alice rolled her eyes, but she obeyed nonetheless.

When she rushed to the library; sneaked into the restricted section without Madam Prince’s guard; entered the hidden library through the book; found the required tome; and returned to the room, the people were currently arguing who was the true potion master in the castle. She was free from the burden as Patchy summoned it from her hands. It flipped through itself during the summoning, settled onto the page she wanted as it rested above her palm.

“An incantation together with some specially formulated potion as catalysts,” she introduced the method to others, “can fully mature the existing mandrake root, with the price of decreasing volume. The lost depends on the current level of growth.” She replicated the page and handed it to the headmaster. “This is the required incantation and potion’s recipe.”

The caretaker pled Dumbledore with tearing eyes. Dumbledore gave the paper to Snape wordlessly, and the latter examed it and said, “we have all of the ingredients.” Then he passed the paper to Sprout. While Sprout showed intense interest in finishing the process before tomorrow morning, Snape rolled his eyes—he had no interest in brewing a precise potion at night when everyone was sleepy.

Dumbledore had to cough a bit to stop the derailed topic, he didn’t intend to discuss this. The words on the wall were more concerning, but he had to clear the “kids” first.  McGonagall soon dismissed the kids back to their dorms, including Alice. This time Patchouli didn’t keep her behind. She considered eavesdropping outside the office, but decided against it. She would know what had happened sooner or later, no later than tomorrow afternoon at most.


	10. The Sealed-Away Youkai

After chasing the students away, the professors discussed the issue of the secret chamber and Slytherin’s monster. It was opened once, resulting in the death of a student and the expelling of the other. And now he was unsure whether the chamber was opened again, or it was just a prank gone too far, Mrs. Norris was not popular in the student body, though. For damage control, he asked the professors to not spread the information of Slytherin’s secret chamber. And that was Patchouli told Alice when she entered library as her daily ritual the next day.

“I am not a Professor, after all.” The librarian said.

Alice gave no comment on that; she knew Patchy could always come with another excuse even if she was a professor. She noticed the library today was filled with students, with upperclassmen frequently entering the restricted section, not many of them were Slytherins though—she had promised them she would get the latest information by tonight, so they were clammer than others.

Students were talking about Mrs. Norris for a period of time, and they were excited about one fewer thing to worry about when crossing the lines. But Soon, their dream was ended, Mrs. Norris was patrolling the corridors a day after. Multiple were captured and sent to detention.

People were robbing any book including any bit of history of Hogwarts, according to Madam Prince, there wasn’t a single copy left in the library now.

“What happened?” When she returned to the Slytherin common room, nearly all of them were waiting, including the prefects.

Alice repeated what she learned from Patchy. “I am not a professor either,” she ended.

Most of them laughed at her words and went to sleep after thanking her. Darco left behind in the common room, he approached her when he found out Alice was not considering going to sleep.

“Do I look like a messenger?” Alice complained.

Draco laughed in embarrassment, he was going to ask Alice a favor indeed. His father decided to ask Knowledge for help after he received the letter, and since Knowledge never appeared on the Great Hall during breakfast, none of the owls get to her.

“You may just place it there, I will process that have time, probably.”

“I guess you are not allowed to…”

Alice interrupted him, “Patchy will let me read it, anyway.”

Draco sighed, “Can I assume that even if she is a professor…”

“Yes.” Alice interrupted again, “aren’t you going to sleep? it’s one in the morning now.”

“You aren’t either,” he observed.

Normally, Alice wouldn’t go to sleep until three in the morning. An hour or two of napping would be enough. She could sleep whole day long if it was unnormal, like on the day she was sorted. That hadn’t happened again though.

But she didn’t need to explain those to Draco. She just collected her stuff and headed back to her individual room. “Good night then,” she said.

< 

Alice was sitting across Patchy on a normal table in the library when the Gryffindor trio rushed in and asked the librarian for a book in the restricted section. Madam Prince was nowhere to be found though, perhaps accepting Patchy’s advice and looking for new books. So they came to the pair instead.

Ron Weasley seemed uncertain about this, but he was dragged forward by the witch with them. “Do you want to find out the heir or not?” the witch hissed. When they finally reached the table, Alice was deep in her work, not noticing their approach. The trio got a glimpse of what she was doing—drawing a humanoid shape on a parchment.

“The Moste Potente Potions?” Patchouli eyed them in question, “why would you need that?”

They explained too eagerly, saying something about potion use described in DADA’s textbook. “Professor Lockhart has agreed,” Hermione said, “and we have his approval.”

“I thought Professor Snape was the real potion master in the castle.”

They looked even more eager when Patchouli didn’t seem like she was going to give them the book—she didn’t stand up or walk into the section. A few minutes later, a large and old yet nicely maintained book emerged from the bookcases. It landed on Hermione’s stretched hands. She hurriedly tucked the book into her bag and left the library trying not to be suspicious.

Meanwhile, Alice finished her drawing. The books she used for reference closed up and returned themselves to their spot. The magic circuits in her experimental doll were completed, what she needed now was a driver and control system. She had created the doll’s core for the latter requirement, but the driver was the real obstacle. Unless she was making some dolls which could only follow simple orders such as wave swords and detonation, a driver was needed. Animal’s self-conscious were based on the currents within their brain nexus. Surely, she could adapt that pattern onto dead objects and make them “alive”. This was where the soul kicked in. Part of the collection in the magical library believed that the soul was a unique field for everyone, created by the interactions of nerve currents, and since represented exactly the person’s personality. If she could create…or borrow someone’s soul and applied it onto her dolls, a corresponding current of that field would be generated, and ideally, her dolls would be able to think by itself. _To create a soul,_ she sighed, _talking is simple. Self-explosive dolls aren’t that bad._

< 

Hermione was looking curiously at the yellowish page of the Moste Potente Potions in the flooded girl toilet. She stared at it in horror when Ron grabbed the book with wet hands and flipped it open. Strangely the pages seemed to be waterproof. Water drops slide off them instantly. Harry and Ron were obvious to her discovery, as the drawings displayed beside potion recipes were more attractive.

“I know why this belongs to the restricted section now,” Harry said.

Finishing commenting on those gruesome pictures, they founded the page recording Polyjuice Potion, and started to prepare the ingredients. They frustratedly found out two of the required ingredients could only be found in Professor Snape’s personal storage. But still, they decided that finding out the heir of Slytherin was prior to being expelled.

< 

They were waiting in the change room for the match to start on Saturday morning. Slytherin would play against Gryffindor in the first Quidditch match of the year, which shouldn’t be a problem. Harry Potter seemed to be a talented seeker and a great threat to their victory, but Alice didn’t mind losing the game. As long as she got a chance to fly legitimately in the school and enjoy the fun of the game incidentally, loosing was not unbearable.

When Madam Hooch released the Quaffle and announced the start of the game, Alice was the first one taking off, accelerating past the red sphere straight into the sky. Instilling its owner’s magic, hand-engraved magic arrays operated once again after nearly a hundred years of resting. Distortion of time and space was smoothened, gravity no longer pulling the witch to ground.

As a result of their advanced brooms, the Slytherin chasers were able to grab the ball and scored it even before the Gryffindor captain reached his defense location.

When Harry reached his spot, somewhere he believed high enough to view the whole field for the Snitch, he discovered Alice was flying even higher than him. Then he realized a Bludger was charging at him from below, and Alice was attempting to dive. In another second she had passed him, aiming at Gryffindor’s counterattacking chasers. He stared at her in terror as her route was head-on with the Bludger.

The magic arrays were operating inversely under her control, generating an extra force between her and Earth during diving. Letting the Bludger grazed pass near her left ear, countering the instance of unbalance due to its turbulent, she was in the position of interception in high velocity when the Gryffindor chaser threw the Quaffle. Adjusting from diving to level flying, she penetrated the defense formed by the enemy team when they were about to visually confirm their result. Then she started climbing with the remained velocity, passing the Quaffle toward her teammate at a high altitude. When she returned to her original position, the two remained chaser had gained another ten points for their team.

< 

Harry could not keep his height now—the Bludgers were only attacking him, and the Weasley twins were doing their best to keep them away. Regarding his situation, the Gryffindor team requested the game suspended.

“Listen,” Harry said, “the only way for me to catch the Golden Snitch was it flying into my sleeve if you two keep surrounding me. I can deal with them alone.”

Fred said, “If we are not striking Bludgers…”

“we can’t strike their heads instead.”

“The only way we can win,” Harry looked at the scoring board, Slytherin was sixty points ahead now, “is to let me catch the Snitch.”

< 

“Do you see that?” Draco scoffed, “Potter isn’t going to be anywhere near the Snitch, we have already won.”

“You are not supposed to watch Potter,” The captain stated, “it’s the best opportunity now…” He sadly discovered that there were only three people on the team was actually playing the game. The beaters didn’t have their target and the seeker was locking his attention on Potter. The keeper, well, hadn’t met an attack yet.

Alice gave no comment on the issue. She actually hoped the Bludgers were not problematic—peaceful flight was enjoyable, but it was not as enjoyable as playing with the Bludgers.

The game continued after a short pause, and the Gryffindors were scoring now. They would only release the Quaffle until they were extremely close to the ring. When they tried to pass the ball, they remember to check upward in case of the blonde witch was diving upon them. However, without passing, their brooms were easily surpassed by the Nimbus 2001s.

Alice had just dived into the center of Gryffindor chasers. They were forced to rebalance—with both hands—releasing the Quaffle in the process. As a result, ten more points were going to be added in a few seconds. On her climbing, she witnessed Harry flew toward the Golden Snitch hovering above Draco’s ear; his right arm was hanging uselessly.

Draco dodged the charge, while Harry took the Golden Snitch before crashing.

The game was ended, and Alice was satisfied with the result. She did spend some time to figure out ways to counter Gryffindor chasers’ tactics. She descended as slow as she could and shifted to sit sideways, trying to enjoy the last bit of flying in light rain. When Alice descended onto the pitch, Harry Potter had gone to the infirmary, while the rest of the Gryffindor team was still bathing in the rain.

“You are a good player,” their captain said, “I hope we can have a fair play next time.” Implying it was the Bludgers out of control were their doings.

“With privilege.” She said, still sitting sideways on her broom. The floating broom made up her shortage of height. Her team was not trying to justify, nobody would believe them anyway.

< 

Patchouli was invited to an unscheduled staff meeting, where the headmaster announced another attack took place after the Quidditch match. The headmaster seemed to have his own plan for solving the incident, so he soon shifted the topic to revive the victim.

“Reviving a human will require more draught,” Professor Snape explained, “we may not have that much Mandrake left if there will be more attacks in the future. The cost of instant grow was unexpectedly large.”

“And no fresh Mandrakes can be found anywhere in the market in this time period,” Professor Sprout added, “even in the southern hemisphere.”

Leaving the boy in the infirmary seemed to be the only thing they could do. Professor Snape requested for the entrance of Patchouli’s library, in the end. The head of Slytherin didn’t want to give up, “I could have found an alternative potion.”

“The potion in section C,” she agreed, “though I am not expecting you can find anything useful in a short time.” She told them the way to enter the library through the restricted section, which horrified nearly everyone in the room.

“Magical usage of unforgivables?” Professor McGonagall muttered in disbelieve, sharing the expression identical to her colleges.

“That book was in the section for nearly five centuries,” regarding their disbelieve eyes, “do some research out of your filed isn’t that bad.”

< 

The news of the second attack spread violently in the school. By the third day’s noon after the Quidditch match, every student had acquired this piece of information. They started walking together to class, hoping the monster wouldn’t dare attack a group of prey. Alice remained alone for most of the time. She didn’t go to class in groups—no Slytherin did—and it usually was too late to find any students left in the library when the library was closed.

Learning from Pansy’s intelligence, she seemed to be the most suspected person in the castle. Slytherin, suspicious. Always doing something mysterious Merlin knows something in the library, more suspicious. Transferred to Hogwarts in the exact term the heir appeared, even more suspicious. And last but not least, always staying alone.

Draco knew better, the blonde witch was familiar with the pureblood husbandry vampires created in Romania. If she really wanted to clear all mudbloods out of the castle, she must be a vampire herself, right? She didn’t afraid to sunlight or silver though. Would there really be people willingly selling their fellows to beasts?

“Don’t be so sure about that,” Alice seemed to understand his thoughts, “Slytherin was famous for achieving goals at any costs.”

< 

She successfully assembled her first doll in the first week of December. The torso and limbs were made of precisely carved woods. Silver, the classic magic conducting material, buried within the woods, forming a closed loop in the body. She didn’t spend much time on designing appearance—the doll was simple a shrunk form of herself, with long hair though. Patchouli “borrowed” it almost immediately, and returned in the evening with a modified vision sharing charm enchanted on it.

“The film in the victim’s camera was melted after or during the attack,” she justified her behavior, “so I removed all energetic waves in the vision.”

Alice was grateful for her solicitude, so decided to neglect the fact that a simple enchantment took Patchy an entire afternoon. She looked into the doll’s eyes, and discovered that instead of being pale blue when she created them, they were brown-red now. _That’s what “removed all energetic waves” means,_ she thought _, the outfits will have to be changed to fit her new eyes._

_Is this a coincidence?_ She thought, she could see a familiar silhouette in the doll. She tailored the original dress, switching from light-blue to red. The figure was tangling with her memory now. With a wand maneuver with trembling hands, the golden long hair was charmed snowy white.

“No,” she whispered to herself, cupping the doll with both of her hands, “I won’t give up so fast.” As if emphasizing her point, the adjustment of the hair was removed. Gold was overspreading from the ends, slowly replacing the color.

Dispersing the thoughts and emotions and burring them back to layers of memories, she calmed herself down for the next step. She felt her magic converged into a string which connected to the core—just like what happened during her practice with a single core.

She experimentally swung her arms, and the doll did the same thing under her movement. The doll followed her command, stood up, and walked a few laps. It marched stiff and sluggish steps, seemed to fall at any time. She frowned upon the result, commanding through a magic core was not as smooth as she thought to be—she could do much better with actual strings. It was like using a wand to control another wand. _But that’s it,_ she thought, _within the range of error._

Since that day she finished the doll, she would spend some time staring at it each night. Seeing herself through another person’s eyes was fascinating, even though it lacked some essential color. Patchouli gave no comment on her waste of time. She wasn’t sure what Alice had done when she created her first doll back in the time. But judging on her character and lonely situation, talking to her controlled dolls seemed to be a reasonable guess.

< 

Things were never meant to settle in Hogwarts, even in the potion class of which professor was known to be harsh.

Alice saw a firecracker flying from her edge of sight directly into Goyle’s boiling cauldron of potion, which was designed to inflate body tissues. The sparking lead traced a perfect parabola in the midair, loyally doing its duty even below the liquid level. She could hear a dreary explosion in the cauldron no more than three steps away, and the eruption of disastrous swelling potion followed closely behind.

She stared at those liquid drops making their flight toward her, soon realized that the distribution was dense enough to block her way to shelter. She was searching for a bat spleen with the right hand while adjusting the fire beneath cauldron by wand with the other, all hands were near her cauldron. She had to suppress the instinct of blocking the projectiles with arms, flipping over another cauldron full of incomplete potion or knocking unknown ingredients into the fire in the movement were… not good.

She felt sorrow for herself, if she could arrange the setup in a proper way, instead of putting everything in hand’s reach, she might be able to free one hand without causing the unpredictable outcome. Release a protection charm was not a good idea, since half of her mind was busy with adjusting fire, so did her magic and wand. Giving up on flame control and letting her swelling potion explode under her nose was obviously not good as well.

A violent and disordered protection was formed in front of her. The hot liquids easily chewed through the shell, loosing kinetic in the process, and landed on the table. Her classmates were not that fortunate—most of them got their hands enlarged. She heard the professor shouting something, but her stinging mind resisted to analyze them. Her sight swiped through the harmless pots of swelling potion on the desk and landed on the invisible barrier she just conjured. Blurred figured rushed pass her to the front desk. No one seemed to notice the witch staring at the air.

“…will be expelled.” Alice could finally hear something after an unknown period of time. The continuous heating of cauldron had already been stopped by her unconsciously. The final step was drop temperature in the recipe, now the potion was chilly. She could feel a sudden thirst for energy of her cells, reminding her that her magic reserve was drained in the past ten minutes.

Alice attended the classes with needles sticking her mind for the rest of the day, which was clearly convenient for some opponent. The feeling was eased the other day, thanks to the grimoire she had. The good thing was, after the accidental outburst in the potion class, she now had confidence in trying to perform multiple magic at the same time.

A good opportunity showed itself. An announcement was posted in the great hall by the end of the week, saying that a dueling club, the timetables with respect to grades, would be hosted in the great hall. She mourned for the heavy-duty professors sincerely. Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts not only had to take responsibility on nearly four hundred students’ education in different levels of the course in working hours at weekdays, but also had to spend his night dealing with the extracurricular activity. How diligent! Considering the headmaster would only hire one DADA professor each year, resigning only after a year in work wasn’t surprising at all! Professors were humans, not Patchouli, after all.

She difficultly dragged her drifted thought back to reality. _Enough with the labor problem, it’s the dueling club now._ Since it was a friendly competition between students, throwing multiple spells on one’s face and overpower them was not being considered as “using power slightly stronger than opponent”. However, secretly casting a Lumos on one hand while dueling the other could achieve the goals of using her peer’s level of magic and practicing double casting. As for losing the duel, that didn’t matter too much.

Most of the second-years were gathered in the great hall by eight in the night. Pansy was chatting with the group of Slytherin near her.

“From what I have heard,” Pansy announced, “the serpent’s king is going to join the club. The other one will be Lockhart.”

Most of them sneered at her words, as if already seeing how the DADA professor was defeated by their head of house.

Professor Lockhart hopped onto the stage like a courting peacock, stirring his luxurious robes. Professor Snape followed unwillingly behind, heavily frowned as if he would murder the man in front at any time.

The DADA professor was doing some normal speech before any activity he attended. Using the time she re-adjusted the Lumos spell she currently casting, making sure no one would notice it during combat. Normal Lumos would emit mixed visible light, but the power could be adjusted to produce lower frequency waves—infrared was a good choice. Not only it was less energy consuming, but more importantly, it could keep her hand warm.

By the time she placed her attention on the stage, the DADA professor was defeated in a demonstration of “proper duel” by a simple Expelliarmus.a proper duel obviously involved being blasted onto the corner of the wall—Professor Lockhart didn’t protest. A quarter of the audience cheered for their head of house, and sneering was a common expression in the male population.

Professor Lockhart spent his time in the corner, until he returned to his classic eight-teeth smile and returned to the stage.

“Now,” he said, “let’s assign you into groups of two.”

Alice hesitated, even though she was restricted by her own rule, that didn’t mean she would find someone incapable on wand to ensure victory. Quite on the opposite…

“Oh,” Professor interrupted the pairing, “it’s time to separate the dream couple.” He sneered, paired Harry Potter with Draco and sent Hermione to Alice.

Hermione gave her a humble smile, and Alice returned courteously. _A difficult opponent._

“Do you know anything about the secret chamber?” she suddenly asked.

“I might have some general ideas on that.”

“So who’s the heir?”

“Such trivial matter rarely concerned me.”

“A student was frozen!”

“Does the cat means nothing to you?” Alice quibbled, “Expelliarmus.” She managed to cast the spell by full wand movement like a beginner.

Hermione easily blocked the spell with protection charm, surprised and enraged by the sudden attack.

“Expelliarmus!” she shouted, returning a jet of light two times faster than the previous one, missing the target by a hair’s distance.

Alice was moving unrealistically slow now, being constantly interrupted by tiny magic outbursts when double casting. Her opponent was able to catch the instances, somehow.

The wand’s tip twinkled, and a red jet flashed through the spacing, knocking onto the barrier Alice placed beforehand. It cracked under impact, but it was already performing much better compared to the disposable waste she created in the potion class.

Failure was only a matter of time, she totally could not find a chance to counterattack at this rate of spell coverage. The outburst appeared once again, disordered her path completely together with another red light. She could clearly see it explode on the invisible shield, chewing through it while diffusing into the air.

_I am losing anyway, testing that was surely excessive. She hasn’t had a shield yet, I may still have some chance._

The shield turned black, blocking her opponent’s sight as well as hers. This spell needed the longest time to prepare since the begin of the combat, but it wouldn’t be wasted. She drove last bit of controllable magic into her wand in a second, whilst maneuvering and incanting.

“Petrificus Totalus.”

There were plenty of spells which had dazzling light effects, for example, the Expelliarmus was in distinguishable red. But they could not be further away from the actual light with their pitiful speed. Light emitting shockwaves of air, much better.

But that didn’t matter much. Sometimes, she wondered whether magic would be viewed as representations of mystery and non-common sense. Now she realized, human without magic could actually discover and understand theories ten-times more complicated than her knowledge in magic. Perhaps that was the reason why Patchy was so obsessed in their research.

The white light emitted from the wand connected to the cracking shield on the inner side. On the other side of the darkened shield, the spell was diffracted into a sector.

The boundary between wave and particle had never been so vague for thousands of years.

Multiple rays collided with Hermione’s shield, each of them weakening it a little bit. The ones went off target were dispersed enough before they impact with further targets on their path. The range of this combination was small as expected.

Another Expelliarmus fired from opponent completely destroyed the shield, snitching the wand from her hand, and losing a wand in dueling would normally mean failure.

“Stop! Stop!” Professor Lockhart yelled. The outcome of being interrupted in dueling was dramatic. Various nasty spells and hexes were used in the combats, not like their duel which focused on serval relatively harmless spells.

When Hermione approached her with two wands in hand, she knew she wouldn’t get her wand back without being interrogated judging by her serious expression.

“Now, would you tell me anything about the heir?” Hermione asked, safely gripping both wands in her hand, ignoring the re-assigned duel happening on the stage. The heir was more important now.

“You wouldn’t return my wand unless I spill it out, could I think so? There was only one could open the secret chamber with a special method in this castle, all currently living in a tower.” She alluded, “but there are always more ways than one to skin a cat.”

The sudden silence in the room was unnormal—they were still in a dueling club. Alice turned her attention back to the stage, witnessing something normal people wouldn’t think about—Harry Potter was hissing to a magically conjured snake. _Leave him alone!_ He said. The black snake retreated from attacking a Gryffindor under the Savior's command, and curled up in the middle of the group.

She saw nearly everyone had fear and panic in their eyes. The boy overreacted and escaped from the hall at once, shouting. “You think that is funny?” Professor Snape’s eyebrows were nearly touching each other, entire face shadowed by the curtains of hair. Even the always smiling Lockhart had noticed the severity.

Hermione was standing near her. “What was it?”

Alice was deeply aware of the consequence of letting the witch being habitual on receiving answers from her—she would have to answer more questions.

“Your brain will degrade if you don’t use them.” She instead said, “the library wasn’t there for nothing.”

Hermione seemed offended. “I happened to win with my degraded brain.”

“Till when are you planning to hold my wand?” Alice changed the topic calmly. Admitting defeat to someone with advanced skill was not something unacceptable for her.

Hermione generously handed over her trophy, pleased about how she had won yet again on verbal confrontation.

After the Gryffindor trio left to the dormitory, she and her head of house were the only people in the great hall. “What is it?” the Professor asked the same question as the left witch. Believing this person who was granted the entrance of the library by Patchy was less likely to rely on her answers in the rest of her life, she cleared his doubt with pleasure.

“By the next time you tried double casting, I suggest you get a second wand.”

“I will consider your suggestion, sir.”


	11. Outsider Cocktail

The third attack happened in a snowstorm night. Alice was sharing a Transfiguration class with the Ravenclaws, when something outside announced attack. She saw the professor almost jumped to the door immediately, with the wand in her hand. She exited before putting on a shield with advanced wand movement.

“Any ideas?” Draco turned around in the absence of supervisor and asked. Some of his friends took the advantage as well, surrounding Draco for discussion about the latest news.

“The herbology classes were canceled,” Daphne suggested, poking the slipper with rabbit ears and nose on the table with her wand. “How did you do that?” She gestured at Alice’s transformed slippers, with nowhere similar to its “raw materials”.

“Materials with less self-awareness are easier to transform. They will have less resistance if you stun them beforehand.”

 “The majority of students are in classes now. Except for the seven years,” Pansy provided further information.

“If the heir was a senior, why wait until this year?” Theodore observed.

“There’s also the possibility of the heir use this as a smokescreen though,” Draco argued.

“What’s your suggestion?” The argument quickly turned into a heat discussion, and finally, they turned to Alice, who seemed to be daydreaming all along, for advice. She always had good reasons.

“I suggest you stop looking for the heir’s identity.” Ignoring the awed expression around her, she explained unrelentingly, “with current information, and your ancient Roman Cements, you can never find out the heir. Why not focused on the ways of stopping the monster? If you can figure out one reasonable way before I tell mine to professors, you may actually earn some points for Slytherin.”

Her words had an unexpected effect on the Slytherins. “You are not the heir, right?”

“I am the most suspected person from the beginning, even after the accident Harry Potter did last night, and I am well aware of that.” Alice rolled her eyes, “Do you think I am an idiot?”

“That makes sense,” Blaise agreed with a nod, “even Draco can sort out the benefits and costs behind that.”

“Hey! Why me?”

“Who’s the one kept staring at Potter so much and failed to locate the Golden Snitch right above your left ear?”

Not wanting to re-energize their rages, Draco surrendered. “Okay! It was me, fine?” Then he returned to the topic, “any hints? As usual?”

“Ah, yes. Poikilotherm.” She explained happily, “creatures which cannot adjust their own body temperature.”

Draco was about to say something when Professor McGonagall burst into the room. “An attack happened in the corridor,” she announced, “you are to return to respective common rooms now.” She turned to the Ravenclaws, “Your head of house will lead you back to your common room.”

Half of the class rushed away rapidly. Until the last Ravenclaw exited the door, the professor ordered the rest of student to follow her. “I’ll lead you to the dungeon.”

Alice followed the student wordlessly, being the last one in the group. The others were crowding tightly near the professor for psychological comfort. When they walked past the first stair, she saw someone from Hufflepuff fanning a ghost up the stair. The ghost was affected by the monster, somehow. The state the ghost in intensified the panic for most of them, and curiosity for the rest. But curiosity is one thing, the life-threatening situation was the other.

“I am not staying during Christmas,” Pansy announced, soon be agreed by most of the people.

Draco complained, “I am forced to stay. They forbid me going back home! At Christmas!”

Alice gave him a knowing smile. “At least you have Gregory and Vincent with you,” She sprayed more salt on his wound, “and the unidentified monster.”

“As if the monster will follow my orders.” He made a face.

< 

They were executing their Polyjuice action tonight, but Harry had to enjoy his Christmas feast in Hogwarts first. Snows were charmed to fall from the ceiling and onto Christmas trees decorated by frost and ribbon around the room. While stuffing puddings into his mouth, he scanned across the hall multiple times. Unsurprisingly, he found Malfoy showcasing his new outfit to his two bodyguards—the people he and Ron were going to display in an hour.

Everyone was required to join the Christmas feast, including all staffs and a dozen students. He discovered there were only four familiar figures on Slytherin’s table. Malfoy, his bodyguards, and Knowledge who was again writing something, obviously treating the great hall as a library. It seemed like Hermione was going to display as the blonde witch.

Hermione drag both of them out before Harry put the third pudding on his plate. “We still need something from the people you are going to turn into.” The plan was simple, to drug the Slytherins’ foods, pull off their hairs, and lock them into a cabinet.

When Harry and Ron found Hermione in the toilet, she had prepared the potion in the cauldron and separated them into three cups. She gave them bags of robes stolen from the laundry.

“Now we have to add the hairs into them.” Hermione scanned book one last time, “we should have an hour to spend.”

“We were only able to get Crabbe and Goyle’s hair.” Harry raised his hand and show her what they extract from the guards, “what about you?”

“I have no confidence in disguising as Knowledge. And there is another Knowledge in the castle.” She took out a tiny bottle, “I pumped onto Bulstrode and got her hair—I only have to say that I decided not to go home.”

They stirred the last ingredient respectively into their own potion, watching them turning into different disgusting color.

Hermione stopped them from drinking the Polyjuice directly. “We’d better drink and get changed inside,” she pointed at the compartments.

The clock was ticking. When they finally sort out their new forms, five out of sixty minutes had passed.

“Great, now we only have to find a Slytherin student for the passcode.”

Hermione had investigated the path to Slytherin common room in advance. “Just next to Professor Snape’s office.”

They descended into the dungeon, took an opposite turn to potion’s classroom, and walked past the professor's office as if they were true Slytherin students. It didn’t take them a long time to wait for a real dungeon resident to appear.

< 

Alice was walking delightedly on the way back to her room—she was going to carefully examine the present Patchy gave her tonight. She was busy in constructing a new type of circuit in the day, only being able to hurriedly swept it for a few times before she broke the inspiration—it seemed to be a core strengthened in range.

“Hey, you three,” she acknowledged Millicent, Vincent, and Gregory standing in front of the entrance, “forgot the password again?”

The trio was over-excited by her presence, happily admitted that they had yet again forgotten the password.

“Egoist,” she said, “is it that hard to remember?”

The wall slid open, exposing a dim room decorated in green lights. They followed the witch into the common room, trying their hardest to make themselves home. A few Slytherins were crowding near the fireplace.

Draco jumped to his feet when Alice entered the room. “I got an idea.”

He led Alice and the outsiders to the fireplace. He was little awed when he saw Millicent in the group, but didn’t put it elaborate it, saving the disguised from explaining.

“You better hurry up,” Alice stated, checking the time, “I have my stuff to do.”

Harry was curious about why would she be more eager in chacking time compared to them under effects of Polyjuice. He was about to ask but they had agreed Hermione would be the one asking questions—she was clearly smarter.

Hermione compared the two cases, _Malfoy’s idea, and Knowledge’s own stuff, which should I ask?_

But that’s not a choice for her to make. “Sure,” Draco agreed, “won’t take you ten minutes.”

“Slytherin’s blood’s hereditary ability is Parselmouth. To leave a controllable monster for his descendants, the monster is likely to be a serpent. Serpents hibernate in cold temperature, so they can last long enough during standby, as long as the heir awaken them from hibernation. Snake-like creatures need sunlight to become energetic, so what the heir needed is sunlight,” he paused.

“But the attacks happened in the night, or in a snowstorm.” Hermione interrupted, “there weren’t sun during the last attacks.”

“I can assume the heir know some sort of sunlight magic,” Draco said unsurely, knowing his theory was untenable himself.

Ron was on the edge of laughing, _heir of a bunch of snakes knowing sunlight magic?_ His face was twisted enough for a horrified Harry Potter to strike him with an elbow. Luckily Ron resisted his desire to laugh finally.

“My hint still works.” Alice pointed out, “unable to change body temperature.” She intensified the last word, raising her voice for everyone to notice it.

“Temperature? Heat? Fire?” Draco muttered, “Heir of the house representing water setting up a bonfire?”

“It’s very close to my way.” Knowing he was going down the right path, Alice stood and left to her room.

The rest of the group didn’t react on her sudden leaving, as they had their own thoughts to sort out. The witch’s last words caught their attention, _my way. Is she the heir?_ The trio unanimously ended up with the same idea. Ron, who always rushing to answer, was already staring the retreating form in furious eyes, face filling with anger, regardless of his disguise.

Seeing his friend’s behavior, Harry almost thought they were going to be exposed. But Malfoy seemed to be immersed in his train of thought, unaware of Crabbe’s expression. Not that he wasn’t angry, the heir had let him carry his bad name until they first discover the petrified cat, but he was confused—why would someone who helped them half a year ago suddenly framed him?

Hermione discovered tonight’s event was covered with doubts, so she decided to ask more questions. It was the best if Malfoy knew anything about the heir. Checking her time again, fifteen minutes left, she hurried into question, interrupting his thought, “if we can ask the heir personally…”

Draco was frustrated, he still could not figure out a way of heating up the damn snake. “Yes, it will be great if I can ask the heir, but I have told you—father won’t tell me.”

_That’s enough._ “I think I forgot my potions book in the great hall,” she found a horrible excuse, it didn’t really matter if she was not caught right in the Slytherin common room. Taking her hint, Harry and Ron followed, “need some digestive,” Ron grumbled, shifting toward the exist.

“Heat, fire, water…?” the blonde was still muttering, not aware of their awkward excuses, “hot water?”

He jumped to his feet, pull out the quill under the stock of parchments, and dipped it into his Christmas present to heavily to spill some of the green ink onto his new sweater’s sleeve. One good thing was, Hogwarts’s owlery never close even in late night.

< 

They hadn’t even walked past the second corner when they heard rapid footsteps resounding in silence. The trio stopped immediately. The footsteps were becoming louder in volume as time past as if someone was chasing them, coming in this direction—they were exposed. They couldn’t be caught now, especially with green scarfs and unfit robes.

Harry anxiously looking around, fortunately, founded a broom cabinet located not far ahead. Once they hid and shut the cabinet’s door close, Harry saw someone with a blonde hair rushed past, with a fast pace. Turning right, he saw the same expression on Hermione and Ron’s face—Malfoy had discovered.

They spent another minutes or so crowding in the cupboard, making sure he was not coming back. Carefully pushing the door open, the noise was creaking in the deserted corridor. They quickly sneaked back to the toilet and got rid of the unfitting clothes.

“Now, can we report this to professors?” Ron asked, dismissively tucking the overlarge clothes into the laundry bag, “I will never touch these snake’s things again.”

“We still don’t know who’s the heir, even Malfoy didn’t—”

“Blimey Hermione! Haven’t you hear what Knowledge said—very close to my way!” Ron interrupted excitedly, “Who would say that other than the heir?”

“What they said tonight was strange, we may misunderstand—at least we have to sort them out before reporting.” Harry suggested, “we still have half of the break.”

< 

“Improved in recognizing weak signal?” Alice muttered, playing with the implant in her hands, “without a significant increase in size…” The birthday present on her right hand was almost identical to the ones she made on the table, but the sensitivity was on the opposite. “New materials?” she inspected it with spells, “or new structures?”

“Don’t know if it can be count as collaborating with the enemy,” she couldn’t help smirking, “you know I am very good at reverse research, Patchy.”

No one saw her in place other than the library for the rest of the break. If anyone knew what she was doing, there would be one comment shared by everyone—didn’t you think reverse-engineering right in front of the creator herself was too rampant?

“No”, she would say, “it’s more convenient to ask questions to do it here.”

And the librarian really would answer her questions.

< 

The head of Slytherin staring at the report his students turned in in a daze—they stormed into his office on the first day after the break—stopping him from attending the lunch in the middle of a normal boring school day. It looked like these over-energetic kids had too less homework during the break. It would be a lie to say that he was not proud of them—generating a logical sound guess of the way of the monster’s action even before any professor, with a “little” help though.

Slytherin’s monster, had to be serpents. Serpents hibernate, so they last long in standby. The heir might be able to drainage hot water boiled by house elves to wake it, most likely Parseltongue, which could be later used to control it. The Monster moved in pipes, right next to hot wat pipelines—gaining enough heat from radiation to maintain body temperature and energetic, poking out here and there to attack people.

Even though they used attributes to explain why the heir didn’t choose to set up a fire—burning something in a sealed chamber was not a good idea, even Slytherin knew it.

It was funny to find out a group of Slytherin—prejudiced muggle distasted snakes—willing to spend time burying their noses in muggle books for the Poikilotherm and heat radiation. But if there was someone pressing their face onto those pages, remembering some concepts wouldn’t be tough, probably. Had the Hogwarts, a History really mentioned the distance between hot water and sewage pipelines? Better to check it later. Luckily, the staff meeting was scheduled tonight.

< 

“I guess we won’t have any more trouble,” touching his nose lightly, Lockhart claimed, “now I can easily remove that with this generous tips.”

The others observed him with curious, wanting to know how this novelist could act like what he had described in books.

“It would be best if you willing to help, Professor Lockhart,” Dumbledore said, “even though our students have a general idea, there are still many places to verify.”

The professors nodded in agreement.

“Professor Snape, Professor Lockart, please assist Professor Kettleburn to verify if all serpents, creatures with petrifaction ability or above subjected to external temperature change, and hibernation.”

“No problem!” Lockhart made a funny gesture, “in fact, to tell the truth, with my experience in dealing with dark creatures, the assistant may be unneeded.”

Snape rolled his eyes, obviously, no one here would believe your ability.

“That’s an intense and critical job to be done as soon as possible, being one of the most premise assumptions. I suggest all staff members should involve in the research.” Dumbledore refuted friendly, reciting the importance.

“Professor Binns, please do your best to identify if Parselmouth is the only hereditary power from Salazar Slytherin. There should be a copy of the genealogy stored in the library. I personally will assist you.”

The floating professor accepted the task.

“I suggest all staffs assist this task as well,” Dumbledore added, “be careful to distinguish rumors and facts.”

“Professor Vector and Professor Sinistra, please sort out the range of the monster’s activity route. The ghosts will assist you in inspecting the pipelines, especially for the region where hot water and sewage pipelines are close together.”

Dumbledore turned his head toward the ghosts floating beside the table, “the job may be…tough.”

“What if we meet the monster head-on?” Peeves asked carefully, “I mean, even the poor Nick…”

“Don’t worry,” Dumbledore pinched the bridge of his nose for deep thinking, “if the one standing outside haven't heard you for more than ten minutes, we will blow the wall apart to get you out of there.”

Not daring to violate Dumbledore, Peeves float down.

“Now, if the assumptions in the report are correct—Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, Professor Babbling, please set up thermal insulation along all hot water pipelines within this week. Set up alarm magics near them as well.”

“I can help you with that,” Patchouli suggested, “just come to the library after meeting.”

The three professors nodded in appreciation.

“Professor Sprout, please take care of the Mandrakes, I afraid the heir may act upon them. Madam Hooch, Mr. Hagrid has reported multiple times that several roosters are attacked, please check if there’s anyone wandering in the field after curfew—your office has the best vision on the ground. I suspect these attacks are related.”

“Are we not locating the chamber and the heir?” Sprout asked—one of her students was just petrified before the break.

“I’m afraid we could only find out the identity of the heir by interrogating every student—no, we wait. If our measure can interrupt the heir’s plan, he or she may act unprepared, in a backup plan, I suppose,” determination flashed across his eyes, “even if the result of that unprepared attack was one more student petrified…or death.”

The word suppressed the mood.

“I implore you, every adult in the castle, dead or alive, correspond in first timing when an alarm is activated.”


	12. Nightmare Diary

After winter, the sun decided to spend more and more time in the sky as the days passed. Faint sunlight finally shined through the glass windows of Hogwarts, lightening the atmosphere in the castle. Perhaps the heir of Slytherin had lost his or her courage. An alerted and cautious school and student body should have persuaded the heir form further attack—most of the students believe it. However, how stupid should Slytherin be to build a secret chamber that required courage to open—courage couldn’t inherit. Anyway, the light atmosphere gave students and some professor excuses to be excessively energetic.

Patchouli Threw a silencing spell on the dwarf entering the library without moving her eyes away from the books. Lockhart decided to do something special today, arranging his sturdy angels to sent valentines—sometimes accompanied with music. Perhaps it was because of the effective silence in the library, many students decided to use it as a refugee, so they didn’t have to bear the out-of-tune songs played by the dwarfs.

“I thought you will spend more time on it.”

Alice was sitting across her in the library, arranging the drafts into proper notes, and the core of the research had disappeared—she always had it with her notes before this.

“I want to spend more time on it as well,” Alice replied, patiently sorting out the notes, “but it has something urgent to do.”

< 

Alice returned to her room immediately after dinner and linked back to the doll through a pre-set magic array on the table. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself in the shadow of the room decorated in scarlet and gold—right where she left it last time. Of course, thanks to Patchy’s magic, red and orange were only a few colors she could see through the doll’s eyes. She bent her fingers uneasily—controlling her “self” through ten fingers was strange. She could only hope that the patchy-made processor had enough accuracy in the distance.

Walking out from the hiding place under a crouch, after double checking that the camouflage was intact, she founded a convenient place for her to recognize anyone entering the common room.

_How convenient optical camouflage is!_ The doll thought, standing on the first table to the entrance.

She didn’t wait too long before the trio she was expecting entered the common room. The relatively smaller figure with glasses on didn’t remain in the common room like others, but instead returned to his dorm room quickly. The invisible doll happily followed him up the stairs and into the messy room. In order to avoid unwanted collision with rampaging students, she decided to use some of the precious magic reserves to fly in the middle air.

The anti-infiltration measures in the savior’s room were obviously fantastic—at least she couldn’t find a place to settle herself on with a simple glance. Suspicious objects scattered across the room. But she could not remain floating like this—it was rather energy consuming even for her light body. The landing was already not an option, so she decided to remain in height. Fortunately, she was not a human now. She didn’t need to consider some essential things, right? So she pulled out a rope, just found a place on the ceiling and on her body, and hanged herself with it.

Harry Potter was writing something on the diary she wanted. “I am Harry Potter,” he wrote.

The line dissipated after a while, replaced by some new words. “Hello, Harry Potter. I am Riddle.”

The doll hanging stared at their interaction expressionlessly. _Hope this thing is not a simple answering machine. I finally met something seemed to have self-conscious, otherwise, I would have to go for that stupid sorting hat._

She noticed this thing today afternoon in the corridor when she was on her way to charms. The black book flew out from Potter’s bag, giving her a similar feeling. She had only experienced the similar feeling when she was brought near the sorting hat last year.

< 

Alice saw him squeeze the diary into the bottom of his trunk and shut it tightly before sleep. Her chance came when the last boy fell to sleep in the room. It was eleven at night, she had eight full hours to take the diary, record what was needed, and return it before anyone discovers.

It was difficult for a doll to open and dig through a trunk ten times taller. So she chose another path—to cut a hole on the side. She could generally infer the position of the target in the chest base on the observation. The doll raised her tiny hand, light-blue magical strings glowing dimly connecting to her fingers. Along with the finger’s movement, the strings cut into the leather trunk with ease, exposing a black covered book stuffed between textbooks.

She didn’t border to make the diary invisible, considering that might disturb something inside it. The windows, great, was opened—although it was February, human still needs fresh air. The doll effortlessly elevates the book with the size similar to her body, and left through the inclined window.

Alice retreated from the vision, stretching for a bit after sitting unmovingly for more than four hours. It was after midnight when she exited her room, and no one was still remaining in the common room, which saved her from coming up with an excuse. Her doll and the diary was resting silently in the shadow outside of the entrance of the common room. Luckily no one patrolling the corridor had discovered them. She hesitated on grabbing the book directly, so it was still the doll who transport the diary back to her room.

And then it was the tough part—to see if it was autonomous. Plan A, write something on it. More specifically, had something write distracting sentences on it under her grimoire’s monitor. The honorable job of writing lines was automatically given to the doll--she had done so many anyway, why not do more?

Then the cute doll was holding the quill as big as her body, dragging it across the page and leaving crooked letters.

_Hi,_ she decided to start with the normal approach.

_Hi, I am Riddle. Who are you? How did you get my diary?_ The ink words reorganized into new sentences.

_I am Knowledge,_ the doll wrote, the spread grimoire hovering above her head, _do you know how to play wizard’s chess?_

_Yes._ It showed.

_Do you know how to play wizard’s chess?_ She continued.

_Yes, I have said that, and quite good of it._

_Plaese asnewr again, do yuo Konw how to play wiazrd’s chess?_ She repeated the question in scrabble.

_Why are you keep asking the same question?_

It seemed the thing in the diary was not any dumb answering machine, the feedback from both her grimoire and the answers both showing some sort of cognitive process.

_Can you teach me how to play chess? Tomorrow of course. My roommate was trying to hide you, why?_ Hogwarts could be considered as a room, perhaps.

_I always know someone doesn’t want others to read my diary._

The grimoire indeed detected the field radiating out when the thing as writing, would it be like something trapped—or sealed—in a book? But anyway, that didn’t matter now. It wouldn’t take too long for the overpowered book to decrypt the field and dig its history out, as long as she can lure it to write long sentences.

_Why?_ The doll meandered.

_This diary record some horrifying things that were covered. Things that happened in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

_That’s where I am now. Do the horrifying things means the secret chamber?_ She wrote, hopefully, this could lure it out.

_Yes,_ the words appeared rapidly, _they told us it was a myth, but it was opened in my fifth year. A few students were attacked, and finally one end up murdered. I caught the one who opens the chamber, and he was expelled. But the headmaster thought it was a shame for this accident to happen in Hogwarts, so he forbid me from telling the truth. They fabricated a lye and grant me a special award._

_That sounds familiar, I think I once saw the award for some Tommy in the trophy room._ She interrupted.

_I am Tom Riddle, sounds familiar? I know this would happen again, the monster is alive, the one who frees it hasn’t been locked up._

_I can show you._ It continued, but that didn’t matter now. This thing decided to show her its memory, which was convenient. But there was something even more convenient—it had written its name on a piece of paper. As long as the signature was produced by a creature with self-conscious, it would carry more information than others and a link back to its master. The former characteristic showed Alice that the diary was what she was looking for, and the latter one gave her a simple way to see how this thing was created—by a sixteen-year-old boy.

The diary turned into a glowing screen—the doll jumped off the book. Sixteen years of life fleeted in a second under the influence of grimoire. But that was it, only sixteen years of memory was found in the diary, nothing was recorded afterward.

Noticing the prompt from the floating grimoire indicating the transmission was finished, Alice felt a sudden tiredness in mind. The clock on the table showing it wasn’t even two, but she had already wanted to sleep now. Resisting the drowsiness, she ordered the doll to return the diary to where it should be. Fortunately, this time was way after the patrolling time, so the doll could fly unabashedly in the middle of the corridors.

Alice would love to go to sleep at once know after retrieving the doll—the examination took too much energy from her. But a dreamless sleep was not what she wanted. The closed grimoire on the table now contained a specified memory—that was what she needed most. On the path of pursuing autonomous dolls, she couldn’t stand a second of holding off.

She waved her hand on the bed, summoning the book from the table. It obediently flew toward its master, landing on the bedside table. Alice didn’t know which former master of this book who create this time-effective magic— _does real witch need to sleep?_ —she thought of Patchy, who never seemed to need a bedroom at all. Anyway, she decided not to dig into that matter.

The grimoire knew what she wanted, flipping into the page showing the magic and its data. Once the witch was in deep sleeping, it connected to her soul—by alternating waves to match and resonance with her nerve current—and transmitted the data.

< 

Alice found herself splashing water on her face alone in some washroom. She tried to turn on the hot water tap, but the water coming out was freezing cold, sending a shiver down her body. No matter how many times she tried, twitching and twisting the switch, no hot water was coming out. Finally, she gave up on this one, moving to the sink in the center.

Her sight moved along her hand, which was reaching toward the tap. Then the tap was twisted shrunk, like a bucket of plasticine being stirred in the middle. The sink curled inward, and a dark cavity started to grow.

A pair of orange lantern-like eyes appeared from the sink, then her body fell. In the instance, all senses save one left her. She could still see her collapsing body, the twisted sink, the un-natural large snakehead crawling out from it, and the boy at the entrance. Her awareness was there, silently watching the death of the witch. Then the boy took out a black covered book, solemnly calling for something.

< 

Then she woke up.

_Horcruxes?_ _This clue was not entirely useless,_ Alice struggled to sit up, pushing the blanket aside. The sunlight was already bright enough to pierce through the thick layer of water above her room and shine into her eyes through the window—she had never seen her room being so lightened up. The sunlight was a bit too light for a person just woke up even under water. Reaching out to the window for her eyes, she pull the curtains with force. Looking at the familiar dark environment, Alice arranged the extra memory not belongs to her carefully. _I am not interested in creating another me. But consume energy to turn materials to soul-adaptive? That could be usable._

Maybe because of the shut curtains and the darkened room, the original dim signal from the grimoire casted the furniture into light blue. _Messages?_

< 

“It’s a Basilisk,” Professor Kettleburn vouched with the only hand, and continued on the clues“cold-blooded, can and will hibernate in absent of heat, king of serpent—follow Parselmouth’s order, lethal stare—petrifaction when not seen directly, afraid of roosters—and they were killed by someone, being feared by spiders—they were in turmoil these days.” There were surprisingly too many evidence that point the monster to Basilisk when they were looking for it—too much to let them think it was only a red herring.

“We found some traces of dragging near the last two attack scene, each of them was close to a pipe entrance,” Professor Vector added her discovery, “large reptile with scales.”

The headmaster nodded in approval, “what about the insulation?”

“The wards were applied,” Professor McGonagall reported, but hesitated on the following words, “they were effective, and serval students got burnt because of it.”

“That’s…unfortunate.” Dumbledore paused for a long time, not being sure on what expression he should use. After twisting his face meaninglessly a serval times, “But this could be part of the evidence as well.”

“Now we should wait until the chamber is located,” he concluded, “I have a feeling that the heir could come out with a new method soon.”

“Albus, I have to warn you,” Snape interrupted, “we still need a plan of entering the chamber, even though theoretically we won’t be facing the fully awakened snake.”

“About this problem, I have asked Miss. Knowledge to come up with a method allowing us to safely look into Basilisk’s eyes,” he gestured toward the empty stand in the office, “I even lend her Fawkes.”

The meeting was soon over after they discuss some details further. Dumbledore held the potion master down when the professors stood up and left.

“Miss. Knowledge informed me that she had collected some Phoenix tears.” Normally they didn’t cry meaninglessly, but patchouli managed to do so. “Could you make some antidotes from them? Pure tears always degenerate after some time.”

The potion master gave him a curt nod, but curiosity filled his mind—what she had done to make a Phoenix loyal to another individual willingly cry?

One unknown-to-many property of Phoenix: they are effective in healing only if the donor means to do so.


	13. Locked Girl

Alice stared at the shredded woods and clothes confusingly. Patchy had irresponsibly tossed the Basilisk problem toward her not long ago, in the name of practicing. But anyway, she hadn’t had many things to do recently, so she just generously accepted Patchy’s plead.

She only needed to make identical dolls for the professors who would enter the chamber, hand them to Patchy for the vision sharing enchantment, and control them in the safe of her room when needed. But when she was about to start the preparations, she finally noticed the inharmony within. “Why don’t she just apply the magic on their eyes?”

< 

Patchouli was not in the library as usual. Because she had warned the house elf not to touch anything in her room, there was a thick layer of dust on almost everything. Unfortunately, her deserted assigned chamber welcomed two guests on the same day. Not surprisingly, when Alice rushed in with the door swinging behind her, they happily took off into the air.

Alice dumbly watched the witch who was buried in the screen of dust, quietly standing near the entrance where the smoke was dispersed. She couldn’t think of a reason why Patchy was willing to stay in such as room, even if she had an effective personal windshield. The Pheonix as well, unexpectedly adaptive to the environment.

As if refuting her idea, the bird tweeted resentfully. It fully stretched its flaming-red wings, and casually flapped a few times. A whirlwind was created in the chamber by those throng wings that are capable of carrying heavy weights, rolling up the dust and ashes along its path. Seemed to be in retaliation, it vaguely flew toward the entrance.

Alice suddenly had the spirit to play with the bird, after repeating intense doll fabrication. She raised her hand, then the surrounding air began to heat up. She projected her sight onto the red figure through the smokescreen, then the expanding air mass marched forward under her will.

Helplessly watching the scattered dust around the room after the collision, Patchouli decided to clean out the room before these two invent some more games. So at the next moment, with a sigh, particles permeated in the air vanished.

The lighthearted girl and bird complained at the same time. “It is not your playground here.”

Alice turned her head around in slight embarrassment, knowing she might have gone too far, feeling sorry for not being able to play with the Pheonix meanwhile. “I had brought them here,” she said while patting the nonexistent dust on the hem of her rob.

When Patchouli was fiddling the dolls in front of the large red bird, Alice curiously asked the question stored for a while. “Why don’t you just put the magic on their eyes?”

“Having no confidence on your skills?” the witch smirked, “even though they are not pretty, as long as it is useful…”

“Not this problem.” Alice nearly had a headache on her common vicious mouth.

“A second insurance.” She stopped teasing her, and explained briefly.

Alice laughed, “Ha! You don’t have much confidence either!”

Fawkes looked at their interactions in confusion, but he was more interested in the figures floating in front. He stretched over, flapping the wings to keep in balance, and curiously examine at the familiar figure. He recognized the old man, shrunk in size, lifelessly floating, with glassy eyes looking into the void. The bird swayed its tiny head left and right, but failed to attract its attention.

He gave a slight push to the tiny doll, and let out a few sorrow tweet. Inclining the head, he set the check on its side, and tears gushed out from the corner of the eye. Then he felt a small jointed hand carefully wiped the tears away—as if it wasn’t made of hardwood—and the other gently organized the bright red feathers behind his head.

He quickly raised his head, finding that the doll with a long white beard was smiling at him, original glassy eyes replaced by familiar twinkling ones.

“So, why must it be my dolls? A camera strapped to their body can do the trick as well,” while controlling her work precisely, Alice asked.

“Because they can be used as fire support of course,” Patchouli looked toward the Pheonix, “and it is too late for him to give up.”

< 

Albus Dumbledore was sitting in his office, but his sight was in the room two floors below. Borrowing artificial eyes and the magic enchanted, he could see the most subtle split on Fawkes’s feather and how the energy was conjured when he cried. When his hand was raised, wiping away the tears, he noticed the magic circulating inside, dark red substance streaming like blood.

He was surprised by the unwarned signal transmission, but understood why Patchouli would interrupt him at once after seeing his dear old friend. So he gathered the usual happy expressions and stared into his dark orbs.

< 

Easter vacation came with peace when March turned into April, people in castle seemed to enjoy the Christian festival in pleasant. Alice had to say that they had mastered the essence of magician—equality, as long as they are useful—two hundred years ago the church’s fools were still addicted in throwing rocks into rivers or setting fires in the centers of squares, and now young witches and wizards would celebrate their holiday just for a short break from study.

However, the second years didn’t enjoy the vacation much like others. They were required to choose elective courses for next year, which “might affect the rest of their lives”.

“Don’t you always think that time is not enough?” Patchouli said while classifying each book Madam Prince brought, “then go and choose all the courses.”

Alice naturally knew what she means, time-turners—there is one stored in the library. “Why don’t you just give that one to me?”

“That is too effective, not a bit challenging,” the witch said carelessly, “or do you want an easy way?”

Alice rolled her eyes, _who’s the one forbidding others from giving up?_

She still registered all the electives for next year anyway, waiting for Professor Snape to request a time-turner from the ministry, and received an unexpected gift from the librarian. “Time travel will be dangerous from now on,” she said while handing her the book.

The Hounds of Tindalos?

< 

It was a nice sunny and warm May morning, and Alice was consumed by the philosophical debate of “if thing’s existence depends on people’s belief” when the urgent alarm resounded in the great hall. The noisy hall was silenced in an instant as if someone had pressed the mute button. The blank lasted for a few seconds, and then the prefects started to do their duty.

“Where is it?” Except for the heads of houses who were still giving orders, the rest of the professors were crowding together.

“Heading toward the third floor,” Dumbledore said briefly, standing up and exiting the hall in hurry, closely followed by the others.

< 

Hermione had finally straightened out the clues, in the library. Driving by the desire to share the piece of information, she originally planned to tear the page off from the book to save some time, but no matter how hard she tried it wasn’t falling off.

She had to register and borrow the book in the end, and nearly ran out of the library, attracting unwanted attention—there were still students, mostly sixth and seventh years, in the library in the morning. She felt the librarian’s gaze locked on the back of her until she caught up with the prefect leaving the library as well.

She carefully checked every corner before turning as usual—now Hermione knew that she could not look directly into the monster’s eyes, and she doubted that whether this little piece of glass could help when facing the Basilisk.

They hadn’t walked past a few corners when the alarm rang through the deserted corridor. Hermione was carefully poking the mirror out a corner, just about to examine the image. Frightened, she dropped it to the ground, watching it shattered into hundreds of pieces. Even if the mirror was smashed, she could still see something densely covered with large scales. It crept and serpentined uncomfortably, and scratched the bare stone floor its skin. The noise low in volume but worse than one hundred fingers going down a chalkboard at the same time tore through their ears.

Hermione unintentionally stepped back, bumping into the body behind. The prefect now saw the serpent from her mirror as well. She grabbed Hermione’s arm wordlessly, turned around, and ran into the deserted corridor. The sharp noise was obviously rushing toward them. Hermione could even hear it hissed in anger under the alarm. She didn’t need to look back to know they were not moving faster than the snake. They ran toward the sunlight—the sun generously lightened up the walkway, projecting various of light spots on the floor. Light and dark oscillated rapidly on their figures.

And then the snake stopped, not scratching the ground anymore. The alarm went off as well. The hurried gasping and footsteps were the only sound in the deserted corridor in a sudden. Noticing there was no sound from the rear anymore, the running witches slowed their paces.

“Given up?” Clearwater panted, not daring to turn around and visually check. Her question was answered by a sudden burst of wind. After few seconds of awkward silence, the snake was ejected toward them like a releasing spring.

Couldn’t look back, they could only keep running in the corridor. Hermione only hoped that no one would face them in the deserted corridor—without reflection turning, Basilisk’s stare was murderous.

Things didn’t turn out in the way she wanted. A short, lilac figure appeared at the corner. They wanted to scream, to warn the librarian before she turns her glare on their direction, but it was too late. Standing next to a glass window, her gaze shifted a little bit, and finally locked on the two running students.

“It is not after curfew,” she said peacefully, “why are you running in corridors? Get yourselves into troubles?” She acted as if the Basilisk didn’t exist, walking straight toward them. Before the escaping witches had noticed, Patchouli had paced pass them, watching the things on the ground with a small frown.

Not being able to answer her question, Hermione was dragged by the prefect pass the nearest turn. Before they could smooth their breath, a group of professors emerged from the stairway, leading by a hurried headmaster.

“Basilisk!” Clearwater made out, “over there.” She pointed at the other side of the corner.

Hermione saw they walked out with relaxed faces, and the head of Griffindore looked after her concernedly.  She pointed at her arm, “let me take you to infamy.”

She finally discovered the circle bruise on her left arm. Rubbing it, she urgently shouted, “The Basilisk, it uses the pipes!” Another new discovery was the book she borrowed was left somewhere when running.

Professor McGonagall looked at her with appreciation, “Through pipes. Yes, we know that. No need to worry,” she ordered, “I will guide you two to the infamy.”

< 

Patchouli was holding the fangs in her hand, clearly examining them under the morning light. They started to shiver and crackle under a gentle squeeze, but not long ago, they had just easily pierced the stone wall she raised. When facing magic creation, they were excessively strong. She could vaguely see some faint pattern inscribed on the surface under the light, slightly glowing. The infamous venom was nowhere to be found.

Patchouli handed over the fangs, gave the reinforcement a simple report, and returned to the library alone. She was somewhat familiar with the style of the inscriptions, overemphasizing one specific trait of some material, mostly seen on tools, weapons facing one specific enemy.

Patchouli considered comparing the pattern on the fangs with her collections accompanied by two piles of tomes, but soon gave up on the idea—precision was never her strength. There was always someone who would do that for her in the past. She looked up from the parchment, discovered that the sight could be extended unfortunately to the edge of the library. _Then I will do it directly,_ she made up her mind.

The ones outside seemed to have a new discovery, a student missed the attendance. The board seemed to be here as well. That prefect told her, they were still in headmaster’s office. On her way to the office, she walked past a wall with words painted on it.

This time the headmaster’s office didn’t need the passcode—the gargoyle let her pass automatically. There were multiple people from all background crowding in the room, all not taking the news well—she could tell that from the stress in their eyes. “Dumbledore,” Lucius Malfoy snarled, “the board could stop ministry from investigating your dereliction of duty when you didn’t report the previous attacks on Muggle-borns. But now it comes to the missing of—a pureblood family member—”

“We have been prepared for entering the secret chamber, as long as we finish identifying its track from the other attack earlier—”

“The ministry will send men here later this afternoon, if they decide that you fail to do your duty as a headmaster, we will have to start the procedure by now.”

Dumbledore was the first person saw her, nodding in acknowledgment. And that blonde man did the same. She somewhat remembered him, the “pureblood” who visited vampires’ territories in Romania and returned in one piece—with her help though.

“You looks busy now,” she observed, “then I will investigate by myself.”

“You located the entrance?” Dumbledore asked in surprised.

“I located the hidden place of the snake, not the entrance—I am not going to crawl in the pipes—an entrance is not necessary anyway.”

“Then according to the plan…”

“The situation has changed, I am entering alone.”

“Investigating alone is forbidden,” he stared at her seriously, “a mistake can lead to death without warning.”

The Malfoy aside had a deep understanding on this, nodding repeatedly.

“Those fangs”, Patchouli gestured at the teeth placed on the table, “I think I will need more…space to deal with it.”   She turned and left, “come if you want, but keep your distance.”

Before she was about to exit, Patchouli turned, “Oh, yes, Mister Malfoy, I need you to prepare one thing for me.”

< 

Although Alice didn’t understand why had Patchy changed the plan, that didn’t stop her from smuggling into the chamber—through the pipes. That snake was noisy even in the corridors, leaving well-recognized marks here and there. She could imagine the danger which forced the professors on the ground, but she still climb through the pipes, no one had stopped her anyway.

She didn’t know how long she had been shifting in the dark tube. The track led her to a strange branch, connected to a deserted pipe without rust, not even water stains. The snake seemed to have stopped moving—she hadn’t detected the vague vibration of the pipe and air for a while. She followed the tracks to a sealed gate. Only judging from the look she knew this was the kind that she could not open by herself. But there was an opening not far on the way she came here.

Alice fell directly onto a pile of corrupted bones and creepy spikes. Only base on the fractured bones, she could not judge how many of them had stabbed and broken in her body. She had to manually inspect the body—this prototype made of wood and silver didn’t contain sensors that only exist in concept.

The spells she applied on the body were still doing their duties. Neither stains nor scars could be found on her bodies. One was well protected by magic, the other was resting in her room—serval floors above?—if she could know her exact location. _How convenient,_ she stood up and looked around, finding an abandoned slough. Alice realized that her current body was not suitable for meandering in dungeons—it hadn’t been an issue back in the tubes without obstacles.

The energy concentrated following her mind, a breeze of wind appeared in the dungeon, rolling up weathered dust and dirt around her. the entire ceiling became to shake as well. When the wind subsided, the puppeteer had acquired the body with the size she used to be in. The golden long hair had reached the ground with ease behind her short body, _which is not convenient._ Alice lifted her hair annoyingly. Thinking that they were just fantasy, she decisively cut them off with the string. Those hairs broke into light particles in the second they left, dissipating into the air.

Finishing with her hair, she felt the vibration of the ceiling again—rather say that they hadn’t stopped until now—although it was weak.

The sunlight at noon directly pierced through the deserted air of the dungeon, lighting up the rotten ground.

< 

Patchouli, walking near the lake followed by a bunch of quiet staffs and guests, was about to excavate a tunnel directly above the trace mark she had left on the Basilisk, but unexpectedly she sensed an activating ritual magic down below, not far from her target. Within this castle, only one person met the requirements for that. She started off again, and the group followed her slowly—change the place to tunnel down seemed to be more convenient.

She gave the crowd a signal, telling them to stay away. Before they had reacted, the earth below the witch’s feet started to crumble and be repealed against her body. The excavated soil and rocks were roughly pressed against each other on the inner wall of the tunnel. Within a minute, nearly twenty meters of soil and rock formations were penetrated, bring bright sunlight into the unattended snake nest.

Patchouli landed lightly in front of the only figure underground. “Hello, rabbit,” she greeted, recognizing the enlarged version of Alice’s doll by those lovely red eyes.

“Rabbit?” Alice understood what the elder witch was talking about, “even though the rabbit skin is here, it should being hiding somewhere behind that wall.” The door embossed by a snake made of rusted bronze was hard to ignore under the sunlight.

“And even you drink something,” the doll warned, “you won’t become anything. I am the only Alice here.”

“All right, all right,” the witch raised her hands lightheartedly to surrender. Quitted the teasing, she turned around and examined the slough carefully.

“What would you say if I fill it up?” The slough was unnaturally complete, but anyway, there wasn’t any rough surface underground for the Basilisk to rub itself on. The inside-out skin and unwrapped scales might be a problem though. “And then you can control it and deal with the rabbit.”

“Why bother to make things more difficult?”

“Well, you are here, not easily. I can’t just leave you here and watch me doing all the jobs.”

Alice was ashamed that this body was not capable of rolling eyes like real human body. “I kinda like watching a play, even though the theatre is a bit…” she looked around, “inferior.”

“The actors may not act probably as well.” Patchouli gently laughed, while recovering the snakeskin.

Seeing the witch had started working on herself, Alice had no choice but to walk toward the skin. “Isn’t it weird to put a dragon under snake’s hide?”

Silver dragon, the code name of what Patchouli was casting—a group of silvery particles originated from the earth and soil. Ancient people found metals, gold and silver most commonly, in the soil, then believing that metal could be generated from earth. Base on this thought, being underground, extracting the surrounding metal elements was a basic skill.

The particles reflecting lights streamed into the empty hide, and it was inflated vigorously. With the aid of the energy field generated by the magic, a tiny amount of metal could withstand the superstructure used to be supported by piles of bones and muscles.

This body of Alice naturally stored strings used to control puppets. Different from the real body which could cast magic, this prototype was actually almost as harmless as the appearance by herself. Therefore, Alice had designed a method to mobile control attacking dolls, like commanding a remote control by another one.

Whilst connecting to the body, Alice suddenly commented, “Leaving the library to here? That’s not you at all. ”

“What’s the matter? I missed the sunlight and fresh air, okay?”

Alice was distracted by the originated reply. Looking around at the dungeon, uncountable irritated dust was floating under dim light. “I remember there is one window beside our spot.” Compared to this,  the one window was much better than “sunlight” and “fresh air”. “Here surely isn’t good enough for you to exercise this much.”

“This amount of movement is not quite exercising for me,” the witch in lilac answered carelessly.

Alice wanted to retort her but both of their works had completed at the moment. The resurrected snakeskin was curling itself above the pile of bones. Broken parts were milling into tiny ashes beneath its rough scales. The large head doubled Alice height was placed loyally beside her. A glow of silvery magic shined through the transparent brille not far above her.

“Shall we?” Alice looked at the wall decorated with snakes, “I miss the rabbit so much.”

“No need to hurry,” the elder witch looked at another direction, “more people are going down the rabbit hole as well.”

But Alice was not compromising her suggestion, walking toward the wall she found earlier. The snake followed closely behind.

At the other end of the channel three figure slowly emerged, wands in hands, cautiously only staring their feet.

“Is chasing after rabbits this popular on the islands?” She sighed, the blunter words echoed in the cave, “Is there nothing else you can waste your time on?”

Alice wasn’t facing the three explorers, instead, she inspected the embossed wall. Fine thread infiltrated and probed the entire precise structure. This started to be tricker now—no matter how hard she was luring the energy flow inside, they resisted firmly to fall under her control—and this body is not optimized for encrypting. After multiple failures, she gave up on solving it by herself.

< 

The trio was busy staring at the back of the Basilisk’s head not far away, while being confused by the librarian’s words. What rabbit?

“Why are you here?” the librarian asked again.

“To save Ginny!” Ron was the one who burst out, “and stop what evil plans you have!”

“Leave,” she suggested blandly, “this simply not places any ordinary human should come.”

“We are wizards!”

“Ordinary people, then.” Alice shouted to interrupt way from the wall, “I am entering!”

The snake suddenly moved the slightest bit. And they were scared to close their eyes in panic. Then it was the sound of the collision which flooding the room, oriented from where the younger had shouted. Hermione could feel ashes falling onto her face and hair. Another sound followed closely after.

They obviously could not defend any possible attacks, not to mention fighting back, with their eyes shut. Ensuring that the only thing he would immediately see after opening his eyes was the ground, Harry Potter slightly raised his line of sight to check the surrounding. Widespread smog and dust floating in the air, the wall on the opposite end collapsed entirely, and the two witches were long gone.

The trio mutually visually checked each other, and quietly decided to approach the ruins. But when they stepping into the light circle projected by midday sunlight on the path, their legs were no longer under control. The boys missed a step and lost their balance, slamming themselves on to the muddy ground. On the contrary, the witch, the fortunate one, managed to stand up straight. She was eager to check the boys, and to identify the trap they had placed themselves in the process, but the magic was certainly reacting quicker than her. Her feet were no longer sensing tough surface in an instance. Including the boys who were still struggling on the ground, they found themselves gradually ascending into the tunnel above.

She nervously stared at the farther and farther ground, quietly muttering the levitation charm repeatedly. They were a couple of floors above ground now, floating steadily upward in the neat passage. Harry’s glasses slid off from his bridge of the nose, which she rapidly caught with the charm.

They didn’t spend much time ascending, appearing aside the lake and in front of a group of confusing professors.

< 

The puppet snake was the first to enter. Patchouli walked pass the ruins and entered the chamber together with Alice. Standing beside the snake’s huge body, they saw the twisted face of a transparent boy and a pale girl lying next to him.

“Over there,” the librarian pointed the statue of Slytherin towering underground. The puppet snake was already on its way, climbing upward from Slytherin’s legs.

“I didn’t expect you…and that,” the boy gritted in anger, if he had any teeth, “did Dumbledore and his puppet too afraid to come?”

“Perhaps I am more eager to learn how to play chess—” the blonde didn’t save her ridicule, trying to pique him further, “but the Tommy was not willing to teach me!”

Patchouli looked at the puppeteer strangely—she remembered how she was defeated formerly multiple time on the chessboard and pay the corresponding price—and rage of unknown bubbled up in her chest.

Alice was in the middle of having fun, she had acquired every piece of detail that could enrage this afterimage in his memory, and she was productively in the process of doing so—angry opponent would make more mistakes, and some of them would be lethal. Then she was pushed aside by a strong burst of wind—considering her current body was originally a doll slightly larger than her palm, her weight now was neglectable in the exaggerated volume—she managed to land somewhere near the statue.

She angrily glared at the witch, who didn’t say anything, only gave her an eyes telling her to focus on the snake first. _Did I make her angry as well?_ The mirage was confirmed to be pissed-off, now vaguely hissing something in the mouth. The previous attack was more than effective, leaving him like a burning out candle swaying in the wind—the same wind blew her away.

The creaking sound above her dragged her attention away—the statue was trying to open his mouth—which she managed to ignore previously. Returning full concentration on this side of the battle, the snake wrapping up onto Slytherin was tightening under her will. She was almost certain that the Basilisk would come out from the mouth, it would be the best to trap it in gravels. Cracks appeared among the body, intensified to maximum when the Basilisk managed to get its head out of its cave.

The neck was the first to be broken, and Slytherin’s huge old head fell to the ground. Sensing the foothold was loosened the Basilisk twisted uncomfortably, but it didn’t back off without command. The stone head continued to fell, and the Basilisk continued to drag its body out of the cave to remain in the head.

Alice standing aside was shocked, didn’t expected that Slytherin had a green spinal cord that would come out that easily from the spine.

The stone structure continued to collapse. The chest shattered, the arms broke apart, the waist smashed onto ruins below, and finally, the two legs fell down along with the puppet snake. The Basilisk was buried under tons of rocks, yet it managed to struggle out with two third of its body twisted and deformed. Unfortunately, one of the infamous eyes was completely destroyed by a sharp fragment stabbing into the eye socket. She had to purposely protect the other now, really troublesome.

< 

Patchouli watched as Alice was blown away in an amusing status. The girl gave her an irate glare from where she had landed. Despite the fact that she had directed some fury on the young witch, she had more important reason to drive her away. She didn’t want to see the consequence if Alice could not focus on the Basilisk, and let it have some fun on destruction.

The phantom noticed her purpose, gloating in delight, “Do you think a fake one and a useless girl can stop the king of serpents?”

 “Tom Marvolo Riddle.” Ignoring his lamentable confidence, Patchouli concluded the mirage’s name through Alice’s previous words. But it was not enough, “Who is it?” She decided to lure him to confirmed it himself. The Basilisk was poking out of the statue's mouth on the other side.

His transparent eyes were filled with fierce pride, as if he had waited for decades until someone finally questions on his identity. “Riddle,” he proclaimed, “what a mediocre and dirty family name. The blood flowing my veins is noble and magical blood from Salazar Slytherin. I won’t use this ordinary Riddle. No, I will name myself another title—” He raised his hand, wrote three words in midair; then the words reorganized, “I am Lord Voldemort. Now, do you recognize me?”

Patchouli gave a glance toward Alice’s direction, the statue was about to collapse. “Lord?” she scoffed, the person had the taste on naming as bad as Remilia, “which rank are you on? Duke? Marquess? Earl? Viscount? Baron? Did you really have any inherited land? Oh,” she covered her mouth and giggled in delight, “I forgot you are an orphan. You must have spent a lot of time on fabricating the claim, as a squatter without any possession.”

The mirage was obviously enraged once more, but that was unnecessary—it could not stand any longer under Patchouli’s pressure. After unleashing her dissatisfaction on the phantom—a perfect sandbag which could not fight back—the surrounding energy was activated and pressed the mirage back into its carrier.

She walked toward the unconscious girl lying on the ground, injected a shot of healing magic into her body, and conjured a crude barrier to block the serve dust cloud when the statue collapsed into pieces. Picking up the diary beside, the witch sealed it casually—she had repeated the same action thousands of times back in her library. _Now, the snake._ Patchouli had prepared so much, if she could persuade the Basilisk to give up on the order, that would be the best—but if it refuses, then she would have to persuade it physically.

< 

After the third attempt and failure of trying to tie the Basilisk up with puppet wires, Alice groaned frustratingly. The snake was very good at giving up a tiny amount of body tissue and freeing itself from loops and traps of strings. Rather said that tying a slippery long strip was troublesome in the first place.

The two monsters were wrestling with each other and milling the broken statue into pebbles and shingles—the Basilisk roughly corrected its twisted body along a collapsed leg—while the broken backbone seemed to be just fine for the monster. Different from the magic strengthed skin of the fake one, the real Basilisk almost got itself descaled—but that was not a great issue—even though the blood spilled out was painting the floor red, it was still struggling. The current condition was not optimistic for the reptile, though—the witch only needs to wait enough time, it would bleed to death sooner or later.

But Alice didn’t want it to bleed to death. In previous attempts to trap the snake, some shattered magic conjured wires were left on its body. These wires could grow as long as it could absorb energy—that was why she was able to carry them almost all the time, even her dolls could. They were all poking near the wound spread around the huge body, waiting for orders. Resonance with each of them through magic, Alice founded a piece of string was in an encouraging location.

Although this Basilisk was amazingly tenacious, it was still a living being—it had to stop when the central nervous system was blocked. The body collapsed suddenly, laying on the ground and not moving anymore. Thanks to the smog floating around, Alice could not check her companion’s condition effectively. But based on the time she had spent on capturing the snake, Patchy must be waiting outside now.

< 

When all dust and ash were settled with the two monsters no longer arousing them from the ground, Patchouli appeared at front of the Basilisk, meeting the only orange eye with the purple ones of hers. She didn’t border to learn Parseltongue, why learn the language of the minority when you have a more effective way of communication?

To some extent, Legilimency was certainly a powerful tool in communication. The Basilisk knew there wasn’t a chance to fight back in front of this woman, so it surrendered. “Tell me,” she whispered in the snake’s mind, “that is exactly the order Slytherin gave you?”

Layers and layers of memories parted. “Remove the impurities in the castle, and wait for orders” the old man spoke in Parseltongue, and left it alone shut in the dark and deserted chamber.

“Impurities,” Patchouli was amused, “that guy was really careful on word choice. It was non-human what he wanted you to remove, isn’t it?”—The fangs loaded with magic distributing inscription, the body recovery speed rivaling most undead, and most importantly, the metaphor of flowing water—“Your true enemies are the vampires, why have you attacked human beings in the castle?”

The same scene was repeated again. “and wait for orders.” Slytherin said in Parselmouth.

“You seem to be unaware, that this heir was tangling and working with the vampires.”

The snake didn’t believe her words, for obvious reason.

Footsteps echoed from the other side of the room. Once the fight was ended, she had sent a signal to the ground. Hopefully, the thing she wanted was prepared.

The headmaster appeared at the ruined entrance, followed by other staffs and one guest and the three explorers. They were all shocked to see the remains of the battlefield and the redhead girl lying on the floor. Minerva McGonagall rushed to take care of her student, as well as the explorers.

The headmaster and Lucius Malfoy walked toward the captive, keeping their sight on right places. The latter nervously gave her a pot filled will silvery substance.

Patchouli casually emerged one hand into the memory, and reconnect her sight with the Basilisk’s under others’ even-more-nervous inhales. She transmitted the memory into its mind, and unfolded it.

< 

It was a luxurious mansion painted in blood red, melting into the scarlet sky of sunset. The viewer was cautiously hiding in a bush behind the edge of a forest. A dark figure, slightly transparent figure, was standing in front of the sealed large gate, staring into the sky as if it was waiting for someone.

After a while, more figures fell from the sky. All of them were carrying piles of large, dark, devilish bat wings on their back, wearing old-fashioned costumes. And the sound was faintly coming forth.

“…Lord Voldemort.”

< 

“You heard that not long ago,” Patchouli claimed, “the heir now called himself as Voldemort.”

The will of the snake loosened, and then gave up. “This is treason. Slytherin would value purity more than an offspring. I will not hurt humans in the castle anymore.”

“You can talk to the current headmaster yourself.” Breaking the connection, Patchouli turned to the wizards and signaled Alice to release the blockage on the spine, “you can continue with the negotiation.”

“But how can I talk to it?” The headmaster asked curiously.

“Isn’t the translator over there?” she gestured at the explorers taking care of the captured girl, “I'm sure he will be happy to help.”

Alice was standing near her since unknown when, and the puppet snake had collapsed and returned into a slough without her control.

“Ah, yes, another question.” Dumbledore stopped her from leaving, “Why is Miss Knowledge here?”

“For this question,” Patchouli exchanged eyes with the blonde girl, and picked and hold her up easily with both of her hands. Alice’s body degraded into light particles solving in the air, leaving the tiny doll behind, “she wasn't here at all from the beginning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Running out of stocks...


	14. Oriental Magician

The chamber was no longer a secret as no one could come out with a conventional way of filling the tunnel Patchouli had dug through. The investigation team arrived in the afternoon, and the minister showed somewhat interest in the Basilisk, but only be reassured multiple times by the headmaster and president of the board of Hogwarts that it was institute's property—one translator obviously had worked essentially during the process. They took the slough away instead, though.

The diary settled quietly on headmaster’s desk when Hogwarts’s residences and the guest returned to the office after showing the investigation team the chamber. They discovered a full pensive lying beside as well.

The guest politely bade farewell and left from the fireplace, leaving the staffs behind.

Even with the Basilisk was no longer a threat, there was the issue of the heir. They had learned something from Ginny Weasley, that she found the book under a pile of broken brooms in the broom closet, but most of the truth was still under a thick layer of mist. Patchouli surely didn’t waste the time on simply waiting when they were investigated by the ministry, settling these on the table.

Expecting the memories in the pensive to be the rest of the answers, they grouped around the bowl. No one was anywhere near the diary though, let alone touching it, after hearing the victim’s testimony. Dumbledore had a vague idea on the identity of the book, but it was hard to believe, as he didn’t expect that Tom Riddle had gone this far even when he was still a student in Hogwarts. To ensure his prediction, taking a deep breath, he threw his head into the bowl.

< 

 

Patchouli didn’t present in the afterward meeting, as they already had everything they needed to figure things out in the pensive she put in the headmaster’s office. She was now on the way to Slytherin’s dormitory. Unfortunately for the doll, it had received some scratches and damages in the fight, and she didn’t know how to repair them—even with magic—although she really wanted just keep it for the time.

“Keep it if you wish,” Alice said, “it’s just an old model anyway.”

She didn’t care if her expression was that obvious for others, as Alice spoke before she opened her mouth. Being careful to not showing any more unneeded facial expression, she tucked them away and asked, trying to change the topic, “are you updating this fast?”

Alice was not keen on knowing why Patchy wanted to keep her doll, but she had to warn her for this. “I didn’t expect it to return in one piece in the beginning, so—” she carelessly flipped open a book, “I mounted dynamite inside.”

Patchouli kept the doll. As for the explosive? It couldn’t kill her anyway.

< 

The news spread wildly in the castle. Everyone heard the shocking alarm in the morning, and most of them saw the officers from the ministry coming and going. Apart from some students who were absent from the dinner of the day, everyone cheered and clapped madly when the headmaster announced the discovery of the secret chamber and that the monster was taken care of.

The potion master spent extra time dealing with the nearly matured mandrakes. Fortunate for the petrified students, the greenhouse had just enough amount of plants. Professor Sprout had removed every one of them from the pots just before midnight, and so potion boiler would have a sleepless night just to ensure everyone would be cured by tomorrow and have enough time for final’s revision—if they could study hard enough after revival.

Yes, the final was coming, and the students noticed that as well. Panic spread nearly as fast as the delighting news—most of them didn’t learn anything in the year of terror.

“We didn’t cancel the exams even before the incident was solved,” Professor McGonagall claimed, “why should we cancel them after the threat was gone? You still have enough time to revise.”

Three weeks is a long period of time, people didn’t think this way sadly. Under pressure, the professors had to modify the timetable so that the candidates wouldn’t have devasting performances in exams. Therefore, the Quidditch games scheduled for the rest of the month were canceled—“in order to let students have more time to revise”.

Hermione was somewhat happy with the result of the protest. “Think about it, we won the one and only game in the year,” She said. But the Quidditch team members thought otherwise.

< 

Alice enjoyed three weeks of leisure time different from others, riding the from above the castle occasionally. Her peers seldom asked her questions by now, being ridiculed in a different way each time in exchange of answers seemed to be too much of a price to pay.

She didn’t give up on looking for a possible way of creating an autonomous doll, though. Based on her current knowledge, she had to create a soul from nowhere to fulfill this goal—it was always easy to say. The world now was filled with people who know enough ideas for a ritual magic across the globe to take place. If she really did manufacture a unique soul, even if the soul she created is different from the soul in others’ believes, as long as they had the same name, the ritual would be activated and result in unknown consequence. The one end with least impact may be turning herself into the “god” in common people’s concept, but she didn’t want to be a god just yet. If the ritual turns her doll into a real human being, that would be a great trouble as well—she absolutely didn’t want another human following her, one was enough for now.

In all the time, being able to borrow others’ will and thinking was the reason why magicians mastered in ritual magic could be conveniently over powerful under certain circumstances. But now the ritual was giving her trouble in the most unexpected way. The previous owner of her grimoire seemed to have spent a great deal of time on preventing the unwanted activation of ritual, though, and the result was sound.

Alice patiently scanned through the pages recording the magic. It seemed to be impossible for her to activate it currently, even though the majority of energy required will be supplied by the grimoire. But anyway, there was still a far way until she could create one soul herself. In the best condition, she might be able to do so by the end of next year, if the time-turner is as effective as the one in the library.

< 

The exams were not surprisingly hard, but they were not surprisingly easy either. For unknown reasons, the test in DADA became an analysis of the year’s incident, in which some certain candidates involved in their personal researches performed well.

Hermione was nearly hopping when exiting the examination hall. “Do you think that’s the reward of our investigation?” she asked.

The two boys were in absolute good moods as well, “that’s because Lockhart didn’t actually teach us anything  in the year,” Ron pointed out, “what else can they test on other than this?”

Harry was carrying a board smile on his face, slipping his glasses off. He was sure that he could get an outstanding grade from this. He knew many things, and he had written all of them onto the parchments they provided—filling every corner with tiny bits of details.

They walked toward the lake for a rest between exams. The students on the way were all discussing the content they had just been tested on. It seemed regardless of grades, students were delighted with the DADA exam, as all of them had done some research on the incident more or less.

The trio stopped just near the crater—it used to be a hole, but someone had obviously sealed it for safety measure sometime in the week. The boys were somewhat upset that they didn’t have a chance to uncover the secret and defeat the criminal by their own hands. Being thrown out from the arena in the last moment was frustrating, even if they understood they might stand less than a second in the real fight. The headmaster let them participate in the aftercare of the incident, though, bargaining with the Basilisk, doing the things that no sane human would do. They didn’t write this in the exam, as Dumbledore had required them to keep this as a secret.

Harry looked down to his feet, imagining that the giant snake sleeping somewhere below right now. It was sort of uneasy knowing a threat lurking inside the castle, even if the headmaster had an agreement with it—he couldn’t trust it wholeheartedly. But thinking from the good side, he was about to return to the pathetic cupboard for a few months, maybe living with a Basilisk wasn’t that bad.

< 

Two days after the departure of students, the castle was freed from noise once again. Despite this pleasant environment, Patchouli was not in good mood, as one of her acquaintance was about to commit suicide. She had no opinion on that—immortal is a kind of suffering for the ones without capable mind—no, she even felt happy for them when Nicolas Flamel and his wife finally made the decision which had been delayed for hundreds of years. What really troubles her was their final troublesome request. Anyway, they were elder, and had provided a considerable amount of help in the past. Returning their favor just before their death didn’t seem to be too late at all.

An apprentice, the alchemist wrote in the letter, with extraordinary talent and spirit, currently studying in Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. He hoped that Patchouli would grant her permission to the library, which contained many books he didn’t possess.

_Letting minors anywhere near the grimoires? Really not a good idea._ Regardless, she had to pay France a visit. _Let me inspect if that apprentice is qualified, then._

Crossing borders was not a trivial matter even in the magical world, but Patchouli managed to flash herself into the mountains of Pyrenees—she wouldn’t spend a great amount of time in this country anyway.

< 

The end of the semester in Beauxbatons Academy of Magic was a week prior to that of the Hogwarts, and the place was deserted as well. Yet, today was not an eventless normal vacation day in the summer, as two certain Alumni were visiting the school, even though except from the Headmistress who lived in the school, there were only a professor and a student around.

It was always sentimental when returning and walking in the place one had left a long time ago. Looking at the snowy peaks of mountains outside the windows, the tight nerves of Nicolas Flamel, the famous alchemist, was relaxed and loosened once again. He had a sudden feeling, that the girl, whose body he helped create, must have similar thoughts when walking in the corridors she was familiar with. _Speaking of the girl,_ he self-deprecatingly thought, _didn’t expect it was them who gifted me the final present, Being able to participate in the creation of homunculus. Who did they choose to pay the price in the end?_

The route from the gate to the Headmistress’s office was limited—anything that moves would reach the destination. Even though he was walking in no hurry, purposely observing the scenes alongside—anyone with enough conscious know better than disturbing this old man—Nicolas Flamel finally opened the door to the office.

< 

Locating the institution in mountains did cost Patchouli some time, but the trace of camouflage was too obvious in the deserted mountain range. Obviously, Beauxbatons did not welcome random guests. The defense shield of this French school was very similar to that of Hogwarts, other than the slack detenting arrays scattered in the mountains. She purposely struggled a bit to penetrate the defenses, dully pushed through the shells with force.

Even though an itinerary was annexed to the letter Nicholas sent her, saying that he would be visiting alma mater these days, she didn’t know in which corner of this huge structure he was hiding. Instead of look after them herself, she would much prefer to let them “welcome” her.

The tactic was effective—when she descended from mid-air, a few people were already waiting for her near the entrance of the castle. The old couple was the Flamels; the tall woman should be the Headmistress Maxime. The rest two both had blonde hairs, one dressed in Beauxbatons’s student uniform, while the other seemed to be a professor—a surprisingly young one. They seemed to have known her purpose here for a long time, as no wand was withdrawn at the potential enemy. She descended, landing lightly before them.

The alchemist took the chance to introduce her, “this is the curator I told you.”

The library was never a safe place—both mentally and physically. But since Nicholas Flamel strongly insisted in the letter, Patchouli had no issue granting such a permission. The alchemist should know the risk behind. considering there was no guard recently and possibly in the future five years, she had no intention in activating the hidden entrance in Beauxbatons. She took out a book instead and handed it to the alchemist.

“You can find any information stored in the library with this,” Patchouli explained simply, “the instruction and anything else you will need is in the first few pages, simple enough for any intellect creature to understand.”

The alchemist handed the book over to the young girl. She carefully held the lightweight book with both of her hands. Resisting the urge to flip open the cover, “Thank you, ze—”, she said, radiating enthusiasm to the surrounding.

Patchouli decided to not question on the addition in the end—now she had finished her job here, there was no reason for her to stay and interrupt the old man’s memorial. She responded in a simple nod, and took off slightly; gentle breeze concentrated below her feet.

The departure was stopped by someone unexpectedly. “Miss Knowledge,” the professor-like woman raised her hand anxiously, “can you spare me a few minutes?”

Patchouli doubtfully looked at the professor-like woman, who had just stopped her from leaving. She had noticed something from the beginning, that this woman possessed something she was familiar with.

< 

_Inherited ritual? leaked resentment?…_ possible factors flashed across Patchouli’s mind, _most likely aggregated memes…_

She and Alice had caught themselves in the middle of something about a century ago in the east. They were helping a novelist—just like what they had done in the past decades and would do in the near future—to define fantasy and reality.

“My grandfather once said,” the woman sitting in the ancient runes office seemed to be in some meditation, “that you had helped them a lot back then.”

Back then they didn’t really care about reputation though. And by the way, she acquired some interesting information in the words. Hmm, _This woman is much older than what she appears to be,_ She thought.

Patchouli suddenly came to interest in the case, looking carefully at the woman. “Did anything happened to you, Miss Hearn?” Maribel Hearn, claiming herself to be the granddaughter of Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, the professor currently sitting in her office in Beauxbatons, had the strongest magic and energy spiraling and lingering uncontrollably around her body. She could see dark current leaking out of her body, circulating in the empty space, flipping around and switching property in each cycle in her vision. Normally, energy leakage would burden and worn out one’s body, but since this woman was able to talk to her healthy behind her desk…

“You don’t seem to need my help,” she Patchouli concluded.                  

“A hereditary symptom,” she broke the eye contact, stroking her left wrist nostalgically, “Grandfather, father, and any other family member died early, too early.”

Patchouli sat still, silently processing the news. Materialized phantasy tended to absorb the creator’s vitality, that was not practically a news. But didn’t expect descendants to be effected to such an extreme extent as well.

“I originally should have shared their fate, until I met someone who designed this system, that saved me from leakage. But this cannot solve the problem fundamentally. I plan to exile them to another space—”

“You can’t as long as there is one piece of effective information left in this time and space, which means you have to leave as well.” Patchouli instantly interrupted her illusion.

“The world now possesses some duality, phantasm growing on the body of reality, but that shouldn’t be the case. One can only exist in one side, no one is supposed to stand in between.” She filled her tone with firmness, “Maybe that side is my true and final end.”

This person’s spirit was undoubtedly appreciated. “And you hope we could work together?” Patchouli sighed, “unfortunately, recently Alice, you know who she is, my partner, was not in the condition of doing this.”

“I can wait,” the reply was concise, “your help is essential.”

Patchouli thought quietly, picking up the teacup, which was placed on the table from the beginning of the chat by house-elves, for a slight sip. The dense fragrant, which was in perfect temperature even after this time in the air, overwhelmed her senses. The warm current spread across her head, and she made the decision.

“Okay then,” she settled the cup and stood up, “we will contact you when ready.”

Hearn gave her a genuine smile in return.

< 

Maribel Hearn insisted to walk the guest out the castle. “In case you get lost,” she said.

_Nonsense, I can always tear the wall down._ Patchouli’s sight lingered on the wall beside for the briefest

moment.

“I don’t want to spend time rebuilding the wall and the wards,” Hearn sighed, “not in the school break.”

Patchouli’s interest was raised again. “I don’t expect deconstruction is one part of Beauxbatons teaching

routine.”

As if reminded of some horrible occasions, Hearn covered her face with a hand, “our little apprentice has some nasty habit…”

“Habit of tearing the wall down?”

“Blowing the way out for her entrance, actually.”

“Really an alchemist,” Patchouli laughed, “Kirisame, Marisa.”

“I would say Headmistress had put too many pressure on her—for the future Tournament.”

“The one that Drumstrang was proposing?” The school famous for teaching dark arts had indeed sent a letter earlier in the year, but no professor in Hogwarts was idle enough to comment on it. Patchouli recalled the content of the letter, “they seem to be overconfident.”

“Karkaroff is not a complete idiot. To be prudent, Headmistress decides to throw all the faith in Marisa.”

“And you are telling me this? I’m sure Nicolas told you where you can find me.”

“It won’t be as interesting if the match is unfair—” she simply didn’t care about the collaboration, waving hand Lightheartedly, “besides, don’t you get a Savior?”

“Well then,” they were near the entrance now, “see you on the field.”


	15. Sailor of Time

The defenses of Hogwarts was said to be unpenetrable under normal circumstances—Patchouli agreed wholeheartedly on this—even though she had just broken through a similar barrier in France less than a month ago. However, the “Patchouli circumstance” Beauxbaton had previously was nowhere close to normal. And similarly, the event here in Hogwarts was not normal at all as well.

Two boys in Hogwarts’s robes, heavily injured and unconscious, was founded near the Quidditch field earlier in the morning. Four scratches into the flesh with different depths were found in one boy, accompanying with smearing unsatisfying pus around the wounds. The other lost his entire right hand, the item he presumably was holding, and a chunk of right chest. However, the latter didn’t die of blood lost—in fact, both of his wounds weren’t bleeding at all when he was found.

But since they were inside Hogwarts, one of the places with the most sophisticated monitor wards—especially when plenty new ones were added during the event in the previous year, they were founded and treated shortly after their sudden appearance. However, that didn’t naturally mean their arrival was a trivial matter—certainly not when half dozen of staffs was running wild in the corridors this morning. _Noisy enough to be heard in the library—_ she pushed open the door of the infirmary.

Patchouli pushed open the door, and a mixed smell of scorching and other unpleasant odor leaked through the slightest gap. She looked toward the beds lying in the center of the room, crowded around by figures. The matron was busily vanishing the smoke hovering near the ceiling. Albus Dumbledore was the other person in the room busy with a wand. He bent over the victim, and a tiny thread of concentrated bright fire connected the tip of his wand and the wounds on the boy, carefully burning the unknown substance away. Gray stream of smoke emitted when every inch of pus was burnt away, rising to the ceiling without diffusing. Minerva McGonagall, standing right next to her old friend, was carefully wiping the sweat on his forehead. Neither of them noticed Patchouli’s entrance.

The door opened again, entered Severus Snape with a basket of bottles filled with potion.

Not intending to disrupt them, Patchouli quietly moved to the other occupied bed in the room. The patient had his face exposed, while the rest of the body hiding under a pale white quilt. She gently lifted the sheet, revealing the smooth oval wound penetrating his entire body. Light red lung tissues crowding around the gap, inflating and deflating under his breath. Reaching out, her finger went into the wound without touching anything unsurprisingly. The scene had confirmed her thoughts.

“I’ve tried every flesh growing method I can think of,” the matron closed in, supplying her with details, “but none of them work. I plan to send him to St Mungo’s later.”

“Don’t worry,” Patchouli laid down the quilt, coving up the terrible wound, “I can deal with it. Your chosen path is not so accurate.”

“The path?” Dumbledore had stepped down from the other victim, slightly panting. The majority of the pus had been burnt away, the rest were hidden deep in the flesh. Obviously, the headmaster needed some rest before he continues on the tougher part.

“It may look like a horrible wound, but nothing on the boy was actually lost from the attack. We simply cannot observe…sense them, as the information is trapped elsewhere, putting his body between reality and unreality,” Patchouli didn’t want to expand on it any further, “I’ve just met someone with a similar symptom.”

The headmaster was deep in thought. “Can you restore it?” Professor McGonagall seemed to be the most anxious person in the room.

“That depends on where…when the attacker is.” Patchouli reached out her palm, and a thick tome—not just Alice had the grimoire of her own—started to materialize above it. She caught the heavy-looking book with ease and started to arrange sets of runes around the boy.

Dumbledore had to focus his not-much-left attention to identify the runes. The dim and transparent shapes scattered in the room with high density—he could find more than twenty of them crowded together just near the bedside. And in the corner of the eyes, he found a suspicious cloud of fog hovering near the upper corner of the ceiling. He was pretty sure that they had vanished all the smokes before their rest.

Patchouli had noticed the cloud once it started to appear in the room—it was the trace of information she was looking for after all. She intently locked her gaze on the growing cloud, while the corner of the room was spraying out smoke. She was pretty sure that the lost information the boy needed would be surrounding the attacker in the closest distance, which means she had to wait until the last second, while not dragging everyone in the room to painful deaths.

The specific time period of the outermost mist was untestable. Shattered pieces of information with time span exceeding millions of years whirled violently, crashing and eliminating each other. Their unlucky owner wouldn’t be able to recollect them in this state. The edges between individual events had been erased, and multiple pieces are integrated together into layers of senseless shape. As more of them materialized in reality, blurred domain converged into specific points—those which hadn’t been fully digested yet.

A new piece appeared near the corner, and space behind started to twist. Didn’t waste time on confirming the package of information, Patchouli commanded the runes she had set to seal the corner. Letters originally scattered around the room shifted and concentrated near the misbehaving corner. Patchouli shifter her gaze once the runes had been sent to do their duties—her magic never failed her, unlike those unexperienced attempts Alice used to try from time to time—refocusing on the piece of fragment she newly acquired as it settled on the wound. It fitted perfectly, disappearing like snow under sunlight. Skin of normal people once again covered the flesh and lungs beneath, and the lost hand appeared as well, balled tightly into a fist. The matron worked her path at once to attend the newly occurred parts, throwing multiple detecting spells onto the body. It was only a matter of time for the injured to awake.

< 

Once again the head of Gryffindor and Slytherin agreed upon the same thing for an obvious reason. The said two professors sat silently and blatantly near a familiar bowl. The silence was broken by a low crack of the door handle twisting downward automatically. The wooden door swirled open slowly with no significant noise, revealing a tired figure.

“Headmaster,” the witch acknowledged, watching him quietly shut and locked the door, “I do not agree—”

“Let’s listen to her plan in detail first,” the old man gave her an assuring look, “then we will decide.”

< 

Alice only knew vaguely about the two travelers, spending most of the summer in the library under water. But one thing was crystal clear, that the arrival of the two foreigners had almost terminated their—she and a Gryffindor girl—requests of time turners. The two items had arrived at Hogwarts earlier in the summer, and now it was for the headmaster and head of houses to decide whether to grant them the privilege.

She lied on the only table placed in the center of the library, swinging her legs impatiently off the edge. With one eye closed, Alice boringly stared at the dark rectangular cage hovering above in the mid-air—It was the product of the two residents of the library during the summer.

_How long should I wait here?_ She had lost the track of time when staring at the pure-black surface, from which no light could escape.

A trace of blue light crept into the edge of her sight. Realizing that the entrance had been activated, Alice hurriedly hopped off the table and smoothed her blue dress.

Patchouli appeared from the circle. “Let’s go,” she said.

Pre-arranged runic letters reveal themselves around the cage, pulling it out of the space with the help of the library’s energy.

Looking back, Alice took a final glance at the room. The pitch-black cage was slowly fading, surrounded by multiple glowing rings made of runic letters. Board magic circles inscribed on the floor and ceiling glinted randomly in different colors. Beneath all the glowing light, a plain book lied unnoticeably in the shadow painted on the table.

It took her a second or two to realize she had left something behind and then run back to fetch it from the table. Trotting all the way, she managed to catch up with Patchouli near the exit array, entering it side by side with the elder witch.

< 

By the time when they had finally arrived at the infirmary, the headmaster was already there waiting for them.

_So, it was the clinic where they met last time?_ When the adults were chatting, Alice took the chance to peek into the room. It was almost emptied, presumably by the professors before they arrive. The only thing remain was the familiar floating cage, somehow teleported to here.

_Teleport seems to be safe._ She walked in, and stretched her hand past the barrier again, touching and confirming that the cargo inside was kept in one piece. She wasn’t careless enough to fail to sense Patchy’s highly alerted status since they left the library. _They don’t track people traveling through space? Or just being too cautious?_

Frustrated, she shrugged the questions off from her mind. making wild guesses now was equal to wasting time, especially when they had next to nothing useful information about the hound. She reconsidered the time-turner. _We don’t need to do this in such a hurry,_ Alice looked back to the crowd, meeting Patchouli’s eyes. The latter gave her a warming smile. _Patchy must has considered this,_ she thought.

Refocusing back to her job, she pulled out the pendant—the time-turner Patchouli just gave her on the way here—and carefully stuffed it into the doll’s hand. Yes, the cargo used as the bait in their plan was a human-size doll Alice made—actually, in the beginning, it was not designed for this purpose. Anyway—using a puppet to bait the dog out—was the best option when there was no volunteer. _Speaking of volunteer,_ her finger traced smoothly across the book she was carrying, _I know of a good option that can be “volunteered”._

< 

“Safety first.” was the only comment from the headmaster of Hogwarts before the clinic’s door. Safety? Safety was not once the majority in their researches or experiments in the last five hundred years. Most of the time, Alice was too impatient for some breakthrough—accepting the risk behind and leaving aftereffects here and there. Back then both of them were able to defend themselves—the worst situation was nothing more than physical death, but now—Patchouli sighed, the leisure was gone, she knew that deep in mind.

_Do they have to jump through this amount of time?_ Patchouli couldn’t help but complain. She started to feel bad premotion rising ever since the travelers had lured the hound to this time point. It must be waiting patiently somewhere in its own time. Knowing this hardly make her life easier. That thing must be taken care of—if it was going after Alice—

Patchouli pulled the last bit of anxiety away from mind, filling it with complicated calculations of final checking and analyzing. She was able to squeeze the last bit out from the memories, but the time-travelers were too weak to stand more than even a second under its attack. The few pieces she obtained before were quite useful, confirming some points she read from books—but they were not enough to stop the hounds form peeking into this castle. For a proper defense, she would need a more direct contact—capturing one, perhaps.

“As long as the bait works,” Patchouli murmured to herself, multiple back-up plans appeared in her mind. Her eyes connected with Alice’s. From the pair of eyes, she immediately found the worries even their master could not tell. _When did they last appear?_ The thought flashed past but left as quickly as they came. _Since when it is her turn to worry for me?_ Discarding those meaningless plans made in hurry, she smiled at the girl easily. _They didn’t dare to attack me anyway. As long as we stay together—as if that’s a problem._

“Let’s begin,” she said, informing the crowd to back away from the infirmary, “ten seconds.” The box expanded, filling the entire room.

Hearing the instructions, Alice backed out into the corridor and turned her wrist a circle or two. Her will shallowly extended into the core of her doll, activating the preset orders—simple codes that would make the doll twist something by fingers with a countdown. _It will backtrack for ten seconds,_ she adjusted the countdown to twelve seconds, _that should be enough._  Once her conscious returned, she didn’t waste a second to cut off the connection and slam the door shut.

The group waited outside for the time-turner to activate. Since they did not know which time point the hound prefers—leaving or arriving—there was no need to take the risk. Meanwhile, three pairs of eyes are staring firmly at the infirmary’s door—two of which could see through it and the black barrier behind by their magic, and Alice was counting the veins.

Ten seconds was not a long time to pass in silence. When Alice reached the tenth pattern zig-zagging down the door frame, she looked upon the elder witch. There was no disappointment in her eyes, but there wasn’t any excitement as well.

“As expected,” Patchouli said normally without a single trace of disappointment. She walked forward and opened the door, “A spiritless doll is not enough, we need a more…tempting bait.”

Alice took a deep breath, “Fine.” And she stepped into through the weakened shroud.

< 

Watching the silhouettes behind the shroud, a question raised in his mind, “Will he be informed by this? Having another self?”

“Possibly,” Patchouli answered, “but that doesn’t matter. Our actions in the chamber would have informed him anyway if he still has the connection.”

“Moreover,” she gave him a complicated smile, “being able to revive doesn’t mean he cannot be killed—”

“All set,” Alice emerged from the room, “I forced him into his new body, his mind was kind of…intense though.”

Patchouli nodded, “that’s better.”

Alice closed the door, and after ten seconds, two visions went completely dark.

< 

He was desperate. Originally, he should be placed with a pack of old books, waiting for someone to pick him up. And someone did pick him up—a young Gryffindor girl. So he naturally poked into her mind, doing his things. He freed a monster from the secret chamber, tried to recreate his own body and pushed the plan to the very limit. Success was on the horizon—then he was defeated. Defeated by someone he never heard of.

And now—now one of those evil witches had pushed him into this horrifying body. The body was perfect—it had all the senses he needed, but he was unable to move even a finger. All he could see were the pale white walls after she left—even eyelids weren’t under his command. He found his hand playing with a small device—a time turner, he recognized that. Before he could guess what was the purpose, his body stepped backward, and his finger activated the device.

The spaced swirled and steadied.

A creature drilled out from the top left corner, and his sight exactly covered that region. He could almost feel his long-gone heart beating again, seeing the unknown creature stretching its distorted multiple limbs. Thick pus dropping from the structure, fuzzing on the stone floor. A tube, or a rope, covered with countless tiny suction cups, was extended slowly toward his body—or it was only slow in his sight. Lighted dust departed slowly around it, grouping into obvious shockwave radiating slowly outward. As if the time was slowed down, he could only observe quietly when it crawled through space, closing their distance. Finally, when he could clearly see the tiny jagged edge of those suction cup, the tip connected to his nose.

The radiance of magic filled the room.

< 

Patchouli opened the door, welcoming the doll which strode out. Anything else that wasn’t pre-registered in the system should be accustomed to the new resident in the cage, which was a black sphere floating behind.

“Uh,” she carefully checked the head. A through hole placed itself at the center of the face, ruining any possible facial expression. She lifted the lid at the back and fished the diary out.

“Sadly,” she lifted the diary to her eyes, glaring Dumbledore through the hole on the diary, “we lost a Horcrux.”

“That’s a good news, actually,” Dumbledore pointed out.

“Well,” she glanced at the scene—Alice disassembling the limbs and digging out memory crystals which hopefully stored everything she needs, “now I have these, it’s unlikely to have time on it anyway.”

She signaled the sphere to follow her, “School will begin in a week. Hopefully, I can give you a reinforcement plan before that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time-turner is such an op device...


	16. Did you see that shadow?

Three days before school, the campus started to revive from dead silence over the summer—well, not so quiet in some special days. But it seemed to be too crowded recently.

Patchouli raised her eyebrow when she saw the minister of magic appeared in the headmaster’s office again. He was here a few days ago to retrieve the two boys landed on Quidditch field during the break. Cornelius Fudge did not say anything further, diapering in flames when he saw the other guest, leaving a frowned Dumbledore sitting behind his desk.

“I have good news,” She started, placing the pile of parchment she was carrying on the messy desk, “and I think you have quite the opposite.”

“The ministry is deploying dementors in the land,” Dumbledore stated shortly.

Patchouli recalled the newspapers she read these days. _Someone won a price, no. Someone broke a prison, what’s the name?_ “Black?”

“The ministry afraid that he is after Harry Potter.” Dumbledore did not seem to be happy, “and they will bring us some new unwanted guests by tomorrow.” He packed the mess the minister left behind into a pack and shoved it aside, “Enough of that,” he eyed the pile curiously, “you said you have good news?”

“I have some ideas on shielding time-travel from the hounds.” The single sentence from the witch boosted his mood significantly.

“With defects though.” And the latter dragged his heart to the old place.

< 

The train was deserted in the morning when Alice hopped onto it, even the station was almost free from people. Powering by magic, the train did not require workers to heat the boiler, nor did it need an army of workers for maintenance. Only one man was patrolling along the railway, waving his wand and checking for flaws, when she was dropped to the station.

Alice walked through the train, passing from one cabin to another. She just couldn’t understand—she could have the year’s supply sent to her to the castle, why she couldn’t have the train came to her in the castle as well? Tiredness return to her not long after she stepped foot on the train, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether it was a good choice to sleep at 2 last night, or this morning actually. The cracking noise of the aged wooden floor was the only sound echoing around her ears, almost lulling her to sleep while standing.

Almost.

The sound of a heavy mass colliding with the trunk holder escaped from the cabinets in front of her, knocking some consciousness back into her mind. There was someone on the train before her—at the time when normal students of Hogwarts would still be in their house.

_Interesting_ , she has some guest on the identity of the person inside, and one of whom was the one she needed now, _let’s go investigate it._ Barely compressing a yawn, she continued walking, until she reached a cabin different from others. The half-sealed door indicated that space was already been taken.

So naturally, she gilded the door open, revealing a man with shabby clothes sitting inside, watching her in surprise. “May I help you?” He asked.

Alice took a cautious look at his appearance. “You must be Remus Lupin, the professor Dumbledore just hired.” She stated.

Surprise flashed across his eyes but soon diminished. “Yes, I am.” He studied the intruder carefully, “and you are Miss Knowledge, I guess?” He waited for her to nod, “headmaster informed me about you. And…do you need help, you don’t look well.”

“Uh, I might just need a nap. Can you tell anyone come in to be quiet and leave me alone?”

“My pleasure.”

Leaning on the window her mind quickly drifted away.

< 

The piercing noise of train braking woke Alice up. The tiredness had mostly dissipated by now, or it was covered by the piercing pain left behind by the braking noise. Opening her eyes, she predictively raised one hand to cover her eyes, but those glare in prediction didn’t come. Looking out of the window, the thick cloud had covered the sky, drowning the field in darkness. Even in the absence of light, she could tell the profile of Hogsmeade was not a simple flat line with a few trees. The train had braked and stopped in the middle of nowhere.

The first person she saw was the professor, or his laying down silhouette in dim artificial light to be accurate. And then she noticed others in the cabin as well—the Gryffindor trio she was quite familiar with, wearing confused looks on their faces.

“…last time…Alice…now again?” Someone whispered, her ears were only sharp enough to extract a few words under the background noise, and so did the professor—his right ear shifting slightly. Somehow her name was placed in the center of the discussion. They stopped chatting though, once noticing her status, all eyeing her in some mysterious expressions.

“Have we arrived?” She asked. The pain was messing with her thoughts. _Of course not._

“Do you know what happened?” Ron Weasley asked her, somehow expecting the half-awake witch to know something she shouldn’t.

In fact, she did.

“The train stops.” Her brain was not working very well at the time, so she went for the obvious.

“We both know that clearly,” Ron Weasley narrowed his eyes, “the question is why—”

His words were cut short by the explosions outside. The light hanging on the ceiling sparkled, then completely turned off in serval seconds. Complete darkness poured into the cabin. Frightened, Ron Weasley involuntary stepped back.

Borrowing the only light that was able to penetrate thick clouds—she was quite used to these tiny shreds of light, spending almost a year beneath an equally thick layer of water—Alice clearly saw how the redhead pumped into the Harry Potter behind him, tripped over his feet, and landed on the wooden floor. The only witch in the trio was totally surprised by her companions. “Are you guys fine?” She asked the empty air, while jumping off from the bench and pumping herself onto the desk.

Alice watched the tragedy in silence, wondered if any of them was smart enough to use a Lumos, and did nothing to help.

Before any of them could save themselves out of the mess, someone entered the cabin. Unfortunately, he stepped onto someone’s hand. “Ouch!” Harry screamed.

The newcomer was frightened, before or after the accident. Alice could even hear his teeth clicking while he spills the words out. “Ha…Harry, is that you?”

_This is not right_. Thoughts flashed across Alice’s mind. After inspecting the boy’s trembling hands when he helped the others to their feet, she took a quick glance at the half-concealed door and the corridor behind—an unnerving, eerie creature slowly moving towards them. _Nowadays everything can get on the train._

At least the professor had officially woke up—she didn’t know why he decided to spy on the students in the first place, but he surely wasn’t going to let the situation to develop.

The residents in this cabin were somehow thought to be essential in this crisis, when people started to pour into this tiny place one after one. Considering the composition of the people in the cabin, that, however, was not surprising at all.

Rapid footsteps rang up in the corridor— _great, another one—_ wooden floor groaning while whoever the person outside closing in. _Why should they all run wildly through the corridor? Does the winner get candies?_

Alice leaned against the window sill, trying to deviate her attention from the headache. The cool sense from the glass helped a bit—just enough for her to realize more of the trivia around her. The one running outside seemed to be Darco Malfoy, who just revealed himself at the entrance and rushed into the cabin. He fell onto the place on the couch next to her. The professor was somehow by the doorway, confronting another man—man? Most of the figure was blocked behind, leaving lower end of the dark looming cloak leaking into the cabin. The cold wind poured into the room, curling the lower end and swaying it around the professor’s legs.

_Great, a dementor._ She had only read out these creatures on high-year textbooks, claiming they have the ability to suck out one’s happiness and other positive emotions alike. Yet she didn’t feel any less happy than before. Perhaps it was the overwhelming curiosity that spared her limited time to analyze the turmoil of emotions, or it was the prissy defenses Patchy had her put on earlier functioning properly.

Really, she would rather have those defenses turned off—That might have put her in danger, but who cares?—now she had to rely on other’s reaction to verify the records, troublesome. She scanned around and dark cabin. The others were not normal at all. Should she be surprised? Their faces were pale, yet their eyes tinged with blood. Their limbs were trembling, and bodies were shaking madly.

Their reactions worried her. Apart from the Malfoy who had glued his face on the table and the Granger who was cradling arms to her chest, then the young witches and wizards she saw were not acting along with the books. She would rather consider they had simultaneous seizure attacks. Especially for the redhead girl who was swinging like a windmill and the Harry Potter whose body suddenly stiffened and slid off the coach.

_Various Symptoms, then._ _What makes the difference?_ Alice asked herself. _Personal experience and body condition seem valid._

The professor hissed, in a danger and angry tone, “Black is not hiding under coats.” He fluttered his wand, and the dementor fled in an instance.

_Oh, and situation awareness._ She added to the list.

< 

Now that the encounter with the unwelcomed guest was over, the only adult turned around and inspected the room once again. Seeing Harry Potter laying painfully on the ground, he promptly stepped over and proceeded to check him precisely.

Darco Malfoy seemed to be the first one who recovered from the emotional meltdown. Stilling pressing his head on the table, he took a few deep breaths and try to calm down, but only be interrupted by erratic knocking beside his ears. He looked up frustratingly and found out that a certain witch was pleasantly tabbing her fingers on the table.

“Why—” he whispered, trailing off when he saw the ghostly smile hanging on Alice’s lips. “I should get back now.” He stood up, moving toward the entrance.

Professor Lupin looked up, “Wait.” He picked out a few pieces of chocolate from his pocket, placing most of them on the table and offered the boy who was leaving one piece. “I’m coming with you.”

Darco Malfoy frowned at the aged chocolate and the worn out wrapper, but accepted nonetheless. He quickly removed the paper and stuffed the content in the mouth, swallowing them without much chewing. He pulled out his wand, and carefully sneak into the corridor. The professor sighed, drew out his wand and followed closely behind after ensuring the chocolates were shared between the pupils.

The effect brought by the dementor quickly dissipated, and the light bulb was turned on soon after the train started accelerating. With the help of the chocolates and the dim yet stationary lights, the terrified students finally started to recover. Faint color of blood slowly returned to their faces.

Harry Potter on the ground was helped to the bench, returning to consciousness in the process. Albeit that bench was filled with five bodies, none of them felt safe enough to leave the group of warm and safety.

“What was that?” One of them whispered quietly, yet none of them seemed to have the answer.

Sitting on the other bench, Alice was watching them with leisure, not feeling glad enough to give them the answer— _it’s fare that I don’t know something, isn’t it?_ Thoughts hopped into her mind so that she simply ignored the questions they’ve thrown out toward her. She stared at the table, seemed to have generated a vast amount of interest in the wooden patterns.

“It was a dementor from Azkaban,” the professor appeared at the sliding door and solved the puzzle for them—either he was walking and checking very fast, or it was the time passing excessively quick—but anyway, he returned and caught the words leaking out of the cabin.

Alice frowned. _Azkaban_ , the word spilling from Professor Lupin’s mouth sent chills down her spine. She felt she was missing something, and the word was the clue to it. What was so special about it? Dementor’s favorite place?

“They feed on people’s happiness,” he explained.

“Wait,” Alice interrupted, “they feed on happiness?”

“Yes, and they can reduce you to something like itself if the feeding continues.”

“So they are born in distress and suffering?” There was definitely something anharmonic in current description of dementors’ behaviors.

“No one has observed the process, but yes, that is thought to be the cause.” The professor confirmed.

“Well, there must be something wrong,” Alice pointed out the obvious, “how can the collective of misery accept happiness—don’t they annihilate each other?”

Lupin gave her a complicated look, “there are others who share your opinion, but no one can come out with a proper theory,” he paused, then said it word by word, “it’s not like we can experiment on them.”

“Is it?” Alice muttered, “I thought the reason why we don’t have the death penalty—” her mind wandered unearthly— _is to save material for experiments._

“But there’s no experiment needed, isn’t it? You just drove them away with a package of most delicious food.”

The professor sighed, despite his personal favor, he was hired as a teacher—and teachers should avoid throwing uncertain ideas on their students. “Before any decisive evidence appears, that is still the reasonable conclusion. But before you do any foolish things—” he warned, “—dementors remain as mysteries for a reason, nobody is left to tell the tale after contacting them.” Watching the listener shivering in fairness, he sighed unnoticeably.

If the time was different, he wouldn’t have suppressed his students’ curiosity—even on dark creatures. Others might have mixed skills and choices together, but he clearly knew that the latter was the only thing that matters. _But now,_ he involuntarily frowned, _why would Dumbledore let them in the campus?_ Now Hogwarts was in a special period, and any tiny bit of curiosity toward those floating fungus will get his students killed.

_Nobody,_ Alice, however, caught the absolute wrong hint in his words, _meaning_ _all I need to do is to find something that’s not human._ But then when she clearly thought the matter through, she scoffed at herself.

< 

The thick and dark clouds that rolled over the horizon a few hours ago had completely covered up the sky of Hogwarts. The ancient castle was covered in darkness, except form the tiny sparks of candlelights tenaciously emitting from a few windows.

Beside one of those windows stood the old headmaster, frowning at the dark figures hovering in the campus. Letting out a slight sigh, he turned back and walked toward his desk. A purple silhouette was already sitting by his destination, gently sipping tea from the smoking cup on her hand.

Without turning, the guest noticed his approach. “You really should consider completely reset the wards,” Patchouli gently placed the ceramic teacup on the dest. The saucer and the cup collided, throwing a light and crisp sound in the room. “They are even older than me.”

The headmasters could only smile wryly at this, including the portraits hanging on the wall—they all failed to update the defense.

“Reserved slots ran out a few centuries ago, and new additions were randomly stacked on top—” she complained disappointedly, “For now, I can only forcibly put the new on top of them.”

Dumbledore sighed more heavily, “as long as the result is good.”

Patchouli finished the cup of tea in one last sip. “Fine,” she stood up, slowly moving toward the exit, “let’s hope you can react fast enough when accident really happens.”

Dumbledore silently watched her left the chamber. After a long time of hesitation behind his desk, the old man slowly drew out a blank parchment and started scribing on it. _With his help, it shouldn’t be a problem._ He thought.

Finishing up the letter, he nicely warped and sealed the letter. It wouldn’t be good if rain gets onto the parchment. Dumbledore walked toward the windowsill, where an owl was already waiting on the hanger outside. Cold air poured into the chamber when he pushed open the windows, waking his brain after a long period of heavy thinking.

Sending the owl on its journey of delivery, he scanned the campus with his sour eyes. A dense group of students—the express must have arrived sometime earlier—slowly creeping across the field, surrounded by unpleasant shadows. Starry lights decorated the line, but they would dim down once one of those shadows approaches.

Unexplainable rage bubbled in his heart. Dumbledore quickly strode out his chamber.

< 

Alice curiously stared at those floating dementors escorting the students, quietly humming some unknown melody. Her concentration was on those cloaked creatures ever since she left the train. Even the automatic carriages seemed interesting, not much time was spared on them. To be honest, when she found herself surrounded by dementors in the train station, she almost felt she was in heaven—not long ago she was just worrying about where could she find another dementor, and now they threw themselves at her. _Thanks for volunteering_.

However, even though she was surprised, the others were more surprised, shocked actually, at the figures. In order to not display herself as a something abnormal, she had to squeeze the last bit of her talent in performing, acting as if she was not happy at all under the effect. Fortunately, the others were moving head-down, not sparing even a glimpse on the surroundings. Thanks to that, her terrible acting wasn’t noticed.

Complete silence maintained until the group passes the Dementors guarding the entrance to the great hall. Despite the ceiling was not portraiting stars, the hall was as bright as usual. Murmurs restarted, as students of each house were led to their respective benches.

“Miss Knowledge.” She heard someone called her name.

Alice turned around, finding that the Transfiguration professor, head of Gryffindor, and most importantly the deputy headmaster of Hogwarts standing not far from her. Two students standing behind the professor, eyeing her in confusion. The professor signaled her to follow.

Walking in the corridor outside of the great hall, blindly following the small crowd to an unknown destination, Alice’s mind wandered always— _what, exactly, is more important than sorting?_ Normally, holding the sorting and welcoming ceremony was the deputy headmaster’s honor and responsibility, but now she was too far away from the stupid speaking hat. Unless there were two Minerva McGonagalls at the same time.

_Two professor McGonagalls,_ she thought, _that’s enough of a hint._


End file.
